TWENTY-FIVE CENTS, NET 



A PRIMER 
OF THE WAR 

FOR 

AMERICANS 



WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY 

AN AMERICAN 



J. WILLIAM WHITE 



PHILADELPHIA 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



A PRIMER OF 

THE WAR 

FOR AMERICANS 



A PRIMER 
OF THE WAR 

FOR 

AMERICANS 



WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY 

AN AMERICAN 



J. WILLIAM WHITE 



PHILADELPHIA 

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



3i 5^3 



Copyright, 1914, by 
J. William White 



& 4 -v-v^ 
DEC -4 1914 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



1. What Evidence Exists as to the Real Reason, 

THE Fundamental Cause of This War?. ... 9 

2. What is the Evidence as to the Events Imme- 

diately Leading Up to the War in Their 
Relation to the Culpability of Germany?. 35 

3. What Has Been the Attitude of the German 

Apologists in Relation to Belgium Since 
THE Violation of Neutrality? 48 

4. Is There Any Evidence Which Tends to Show 

Why the Present Time Was Selected By 
Germany to Precipitate the War? 54 

5. What Are the Principles Represented by the 

Opposing Forces in This War? 58 

6. In Addition to the Evidence Already Presented 

AS TO the Mental Attitude of the Average 
German Toward His Own Race and Toward 
Other European Races, Are There Any 
Facts Tending to Show His Real Attitude 
Toward America? , 60 

7. What is the Attitude of German-Americans 

Toward This War and Toward the Prin- 
ciples Involved? . . . .' 67 

8. How Much Reliance is to be Placed Upon 

Statements Emanating from Germany at 
This Time? 83 

(5) 



6 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

9. What is the Truth as to the Pre-eminence of 
German "Kultur," of German Civilization, 
OF German Achievement in Letters, Arts 
and Sciences ? 88 

10. What Are THE Duties OF America AT This Time? 94 

11. What Are the Interests of America at This 

Time? 109 

12. What, in the Light of This War, Should Be 

the Aim of This and Other Civilized Coun- 
tries for the Future? 119 

Summary 121 



PREFACE 

Very soon after the beginning of the war its Hter- 
ature was already so voluminous, the statements made 
by the warring nations were so contradictory, the ac- 
cusations and counter-accusations were so numerous, 
the pleas of impassioned advocates were so irrecon- 
cilable, that a certain bewilderment and confusion on 
the part of Americans was almost inevitable. 

It is greatly to the credit of the intelligence and 
clear thinking of the nation that from the day Eng- 
land's "White Book" was laid before the world this 
country as a whole — with the exception of those Ger- 
mans living here, who are known as "German- Ameri- 
cans" — ranged itself spontaneously and with practical 
unanimity on the side of the Allies. But however cor- 
rect this position was — and I believe it was absolutely 
correct — it soon became apparent that not everyone 
who occupied it could give cogent and convincing rea- 
sons for the belief that was in him, or could refute 
clearly and logically the opposing arguments and cor- 
rect the misstatements on which they were often based. 

As I found this to be my own case I began to set 
aside, or to note down, as if I were preparing for a lec- 
ture, the questions which seemed to me of fundamental 
importance and the answers that most impressed and 
satisfied me. Later, for the attempted benefit of my 
family and of a few friends, and for the further clari- 

(7) 



8 PREFACE 

fication of my own views, I threw these memoranda 
into the form of a series of questions and answers. In 
doing this I had then no definite idea of any wider use 
of this material and in now acceding to the suggestion 
of some friends that the matter thus brought together 
be given wider distribution I should very much like it 
to be understood that I do not feel that I have any 
special fitness for the self-imposed task. If I lay the 
result before readers — if I have any — outside the 
small circle for whom it was originally intended, it is 
only to try to do just for this moment the little that lies 
in me to help a cause in which I profoundly believe. 

If the paper has any value it will not be from what 
I have written, but from the collocation of the opinions 
of others, each of whom is a recognized authority as to 
the subject he deals with. 

Wherever my answers have involved questions of 
fact I have taken pains to attain accuracy. When they 
have related to matters of opinion I have endeavored 
to give the basis for such opinions. I adopted the 
Socratic method in the beginning because for me, 
without special training, it was the easiest. I have re- 
tained it for the same reason. 

I beg to add finally that any proceeds that may ac- 
crue from the sale of this pamphlet are pledged in 
advance to the Belgian Relief Fund. 

/. William White. 

1810 S. Rittenhouse Square, 
Philadelphia. 



What evidence exists as to the real reason, the 
fundamental cause of this war? 

A. a. The most conclusive evidence is to be found 
in the writings and teachings of prominent and repre- 
sentative Germans during the past forty-three years, 
i. e., ever since the victory of Germany over France. 

These writings and teachings demonstrate the de- 
termination of Germany to attain "World Power." 
This determination was the fundamental cause of the 
war. The writings in question are fairly illustrated 
by excerpts given below. It should be premised that 
as soon as these doctrines became widely known to 
the world outside of Germany and exerted their in- 
evitable influence upon public opinion, apologists and 
repudiators sprang up among the Germans, or the 
"German-Americans." For example, to take only a 
few of the latter : Herr Ridder, of the Staats Zeitung, 
says (1) in reference to certain English writers: 

"I am unable to come to any other conclusion 
than that their readings have been confined to Bem- 
hardi and Treitschke, those two German writers who 
were never a part of German intellectual life and 
were both disowned by the German people. 

"As a matter of fact, Bernhardi is not even read 
in Germany. Of his works, published by Cotta, only 
8,000 copies have been given to the public to date. 

(9) 



10 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"The writings of Treitschke, as a historian, are 
regarded by Germans as brilliant, but Treitschke is 
remembered by them as a man of intense party feel- 
ing who labored under the spirit of 1870, and was 
incapable of true sympathy with their racial aspira- 
tions." 

No evidence that I have been able to find serves to 
justify these statements. 

Another German-American, Mr. Rinald, calls 
Bernhardi "a retired German General of jingoistic 
tendencies/' and asks for "proof" that his book had the 
approval of the Kaiser. It would seem sufificient reply 
to him to ask for proof that it had his disapproval. 
In the absence of such proof it is fair to assume, in 
view of the Kaiser's incessant activities and restless 
supervision of all things German, and especially of all 
things military, that at least the book did not greatly 
displease him. Still another. Professor Jastrow, also 
repudiates Bernhardi as an exponent of German 
thought, but gives no more convincing reasons. 

The following quotation from a letter of Dr. Jas- 
trow to The Nation (November 12, 1914) well illus- 
trates the tactics I am considering. After asserting 
that at first "we" (he professes to be speaking for 
Americans) threw the sole responsibility of the war 
upon the Kaiser, he continues : 

"When doubt arose as to the accuracy of this 
picture of a modern combination of Machiavelli and 
Napoleon, we discovered Bernhardi, and found that 
his influence, or that of the whole party which he 



A WAR PRIMER FOR. AMERICANS 11 

represents, was behind it all. Bernhardi frequently 
quoted a man by the name of Treitschke, and, al- 
though very few in this country had ever heard of 
him and scarcely anybody had read him (for his 
works had not been translated into English), we were 
willing to take him on faith, and were quite satisfied 
that his teachings involved the conquest of all of 
western Europe and of England for the purpose of 
spreading German 'culture'; and to this programme 
we added, of our own accord, the subsequent con- 
quest of the United States." 

He must, like Miinsterberg (page 7S), be writing 
to impress a peculiarly infantile type of American 
mind. The effort to belittle, for this purpose, the great 
Pan-German historian, by speaking of him as ''a man 
named Treitschke," is particularly characteristic. 

But his whole argument to the effect that because 
we "have just discovered" these people, therefore we 
are wrong in believing that they represent Germany, 
is scarcely worthy of notice. 

What does it matter that Americans generally 
were not familiar with their writings until this shock- 
ing war was begun. 

Of what importance is it that we were in igno- 
rance of their grandiose plans and sinister purposes ? 

What bearing on the real question has the fact 
that Treitschke had not been translated into English 
when we first began to take an interest in him ? None 
whatever. It is not worth while to try to drag that 
herring across the trail. 



12 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

The question remains: What were their teach- 
ings and what reason is there to beHeve that they 
greatly influenced German pubHc opinion ? 

As to Dr. Jastrow's final sentence that "we added 
of our own accord the subsequent conquest of the 
United States," I beg to refer the reader — with at 
present merely incidental mention of the offensive 
"we" and "our"— to pages 110-13. 

We are asked to believe that a former member 
of the German army staff, who, so far as we know, 
has never been reproved or censured or contradicted 
by the Kaiser, or by any other member of that staff, 
who wrote as an expert in both German statesmanship 
and German strategy, and whose book, published three 
years ago, forecast with entire accuracy the actions 
and movements of Germany in the present war, was 
"disowned by the German people" and did not repre- 
sent the military caste to which he belonged. 

It is not possible to believe this or to think that he 
was not in full touch with the scarcely concealed pur- 
poses of the "Weltmacht oder Niedergang" party. 
His book was an amazingly frank exposition of those 
purposes and an extravagant and unqualified eulogy 
of militarism. 

Before the war his uncontradicted statements 
were generally accepted as embodying the views of the 
autocratic caste, and in the present campaign both the 
German armies and the German diplomats have, even 
down to relatively unimportant details, followed with 
curious exactness his prophetic tactics. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 13 

As to Treitschke, whom many of the German- 
American commentators similarly repudiate, he was 
unquestionably one of their great national historians. 
Mr. Bryce calls him "the famous Professor of His- 
tory." His lectures at Berlin were listened to for 
years by crowded and enthusiastic audiences, his 
teachings as to Politik became a gospel. Mr. Norman 
Hapgood (2) says of him: 

"He, most of all, made intellectual Germany 
drunk with the idea of her so-called destiny. He 
taught her that all history led up to the leadership 
of the Teuton. . . . Germans quote him as no 
historian is quoted by the English or the French. In 
interpreting history he is their Bible. Their political 
thinkers never tire of him." 



On the other hand, I have failed to find in the 
writings of the German apologists any evidence of 
ante-bellum repudiation of these writers, and in the 
absence of such evidence, and in the light of the col- 
lateral proof furnished by the writings of others (also 
quoted below), and by the outbreak and conduct of 
the war, they must be considered as representing the 
views of at least that part of the German people who 
were intelligent enough to understand them. The 
quotations follow. I have used some of those employed 
by Viscount Bryce in a recent article (3), and have 
added to them from a list of my own almost as striking 
and conclusive: 



14 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"War is in itself a good thing. It is a biological 
necessity of the first importance." 

"The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessing of 
war as an indispensable and stimulating law of devel- 
opment must be repeatedly emphasized." 

"War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of 
culture and power. Efforts to secure peace are 
extraordinarily detrimental as soon as they can influ- 
ence politics." 

"Efforts directed toward the abolition of war are 
not only foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must 
be stigmatized as unworthy of the human race." 

"Courts of arbitration are pernicious delusions. 
The whole idea represents a presumptuous encroach- 
ment on natural laws of development, which can only 
lead to more disastrous consequences for humanity 
generally." 

"The maintenance of peace never can be or may 
be the goal of a policy." 

"Efforts for peace would, if they attained their 
goal, lead to general degeneration, as happens every- 
where in nature where the struggle for existence is 
eliminated." 

"Huge armaments are in themselves desirable. 
They are the most necessary precondition of our 
national health." 

"The end all and be all of a State is power, and 
he who is not man enough to look this truth in the 
face should not meddle with politics." (Quoted from 
Treitschke's "Politik.") 

"The State's highest moral duty is to increase 
its power." 

"The State is justified in making conquests when- 
ever its own advantage seems to require additional 
territory." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 15 

"Self-preservation is the State's highest ideal and 
justifies whatever action it may take if that action be 
conducive to that end. The State is the sole judge 
of the morality of its action. It is, in fact, above 
morality, or, in other words, whatever is necessary 
is moral. Recognized rights {i.e., treaty rights) are 
never absolute rights ; they are of human origin and, 
therefore, imperfect and variable. There are condi- 
tions in which they do not correspond to the actual 
truth of things. In this case infringement of the right 
appears morally justified." 

"In fact, the State is a law unto itself. Weak 
nations have not the same right to live as powerful 
and vigorous nations." 

"Any nation in favor of collective humanity out- 
side the limits of the State and nationality is impos- 
sible." 

"War is a biological necessity of the first impor- 
tance, a regulative element in the life of mankind 
which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an 
unhealthy development will follow, which excludes 
every advancement of the race, and therefore all real 
civilization." 

"Just as increase of population forms under cer- 
tain circumstances a convincing argument for war, 
so industrial conditions may compel the same result." 

"Frederick the Great recognized the ennobling 
effect of war. 'War,' he said, 'opens the most fruit- 
ful field to all virtues, for at every moment constancy, 
pity, magnanimity, heroism and mercy shine forth in 
it; every moment offers an opportunity to exercise 
one of these virtues.' " 

"We can, fortunately, assert the impossibility of 
efforts after peace ever attaining their ultimate object 
in a world bristling with arms, where a healthy ego- 



16 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

ism still directs the policy of most countries. 'God 
will see to it/ says Treitschke, 'that war always recurs 
as a drastic medicine for the human race.' " 

"We ought to know that there is no such thing 
as eternal peace; we ought to have always in our 
minds that saying of Moltke's : 'perpetual peace is a 
dream and not even a beautiful dream. But war is 
a link in the divine system of the universe.' " (4) 

"The German nation has been called the nation 
of poets and thinkers, and it may be proud of the 
name. To-day it may again be called the nation of 
masterful combatants, as which it originally appeared 
in history." (5) 

These quotations could be largely added to, but 
as their authors are generals, philosophers, theolo- 
gians, and princes, they seem representative enough 
to show the spirit that, whatever may have been its 
numerical or geographical extent, actuated and in- 
spired that portion of the German people who had the 
power last midsummer to commit the entire nation to a 
gigantic war, with "Deutschland iiber Alles" and 
"Weltmacht oder Niedergang" as its battle cries. 

Every student of Nature recognizes and deplores 
the cruelty inseparable from the struggle for exist- 
ence underlying the great biological law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest. 

But it has remained for these spokesmen of Ger- 
many to apply it to civilized nations without essential 
change or modification, eliminating all considerations 
of morality, of altruism, of kindliness to the weak or 
helpless, of everything, in fact, which serves to distin- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 17 

guish us from our fellow animals. There is little 
enough at the best, but Bernhardi's "biological neces- 
sity" of war, like the "necessity" — to overrun Belgium 
— of the German Chancellor, is simply a barefaced re- 
turn to the ethics of the tiger or, in its coldbloodedness, 
of the crocodile. 

It was amusing, though irritating, to find an 
American (Professor Jastrow), (6) in face of the 
above evidence and much more that is similar, crying 
to the American people : 

"Let us be fair and recognize that the spirit of 
militarism is strong in all of the warring nations," 

and then going on, with the tendency that most of our 
"German-American" disputants have clumsily shown, 
to belittle while attempting to conciliate the country of 
their adoption, to say : 

"Even we are not entirely free of it, for does not 
Theodore Roosevelt voice a widely prevailing senti- 
ment when he advocates warfare as essential to the 
full strength of the nation?" 

The answer to which is, of course, that Colonel 
Roosevelt never "voiced" or otherwise favored any 
such sentiment, and that no sensible person ever be- 
lieved it to be widely prevalent in this country. 

The distinction between the advocacy of sufficient 
armaments to ensure respectful treatment from mili- 
tary or naval bullies and the advocacy of "warfare" is 



18 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

so patent that the misstatement implies a confusion of 
thought that should much lessen the value — if it had 
any — of the author's labored but superficial impar- 
tiality. The real animus invariably crops out in all 
these "German-American" writers and, in the present 
case the "appeal for fairness and moderation" contains 
the statement that it was a "privilege" 

"To see a great united people rising to fight, not 
for aggrandizement, for ports on the Atlantic Ocean, 
or for colonies, or eager for conquest of any kind, but 
struggling solely for their existence to preserve the 
fruits of their labors of the last thirty years." 

The "appeal" also describes the readiness of "Ger- 
many" "to promise the integrity of France and even of 
the French Colonies if England would remain neu- 
tral." (The italics are mine.) It does not mention 
the fact that this suggestion was made by Prince 
Lichnowski (the German Ambassador in London) on 
his individual initiative and without authority from 
his government; or that on July 29th the German 
Chancellor, when asked about the French colonies, had 
declined to commit himself (English White Book, 
No. 85) ; or that at about that time Germany had failed 
to say that it was "prepared to engage to respect the 
neutrality of Belgium so long as no other power vio- 
lates it," although France had given an unequivocal 
promise to that efifect. Nor does it allude to the Eng- 
lish reason for refusal to accept the informal sugges- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 19 

tion, namely, "that France without losing territory 
might be so crushed as to lose her position as a Great 
Power and become subordinate to German policy." 

This is a digression, but it will serve as an ex- 
ample of the "fairness and moderation" of the Miin- 
sterbergs and Franckes, the Ridders and Jagemanns 
and the Hilprechts and Jastrows. 

h. But Question 1 is not yet fully answered. Can 
any collateral evidence of the determination to attain 
to "World Pozver" he found in the estimation in which 
Germans hold their country and themselves? 

I think it can. 

A little book with the crude title of "Germany's 
Swelled Head," written by Emil Reich, a Hungarian, I 
believe, and published in London in 1907, contains 
much interesting, sometimes amusing, information on 
this subject. 

The writer quotes various authors in support of 
the statement that when the Kaiser speaks or writes 
of Greater Germany he "in all sincerity means two- 
thirds of Europe. He means that the German Empire 
of the near future will, and by right of Race ought to, 
comprise two-thirds of Europe." He adds that this 
idea may appear too childish for serious consideration, 
says that in all countries there have been single eccen- 
trics who have absurdly overrated the significance and 
importance of their nation, and that such persons do 
not prove very much as to the state of mind of the 
majority of a people. But he insists that 



20 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"That which, in other countries never rises be-' 
yond a mere oddity is, in contemporary Germany, a 
vast wave of national thought. In the Fatherland, as 
has long been remarked by many an observing trav- 
eler or scholar, the writers, teachers, journalists and 
scholars of the day have an infinitely greater influence 
on the people, than similar brain-workers ever wield 
in England." 

He then quotes from "The Foundations of the 
XlXth Century," a book which he says was warmly 
and pubHcly approved by the Kaiser, and which sold 
largely in Germany and gave rise to a mass of contro- 
versial literature. The author, Chamberlain by name, 
says: 

"By Germans, I mean the various populations of 
Northern Europe who appear in history as Kelts, Ger- 
mans, Slavs, and from whom, mostly in inextricable 
confusion, the peoples of modem Europe are sprung. 
That they came originally from a single family is cer- 
tain, but the German, in the narrower Tacitean sense, 
has kept himself so pre-eminent among his kinsmen 
intellectually, morally and physically, that we are 
justified in applying his name to the whole family. 
The German is the soul of our culture. The Europe 
of to-day, spread far over the globe, exhibits the bril- 
liant result of an infinitely varied ramification. What 
binds us into one is the Germanic blood. . . 
Only Germans sit on European thrones. What has 
happened is only prolegomena. . . . True his- 
tory begins from the moment when the German, with 
mighty hand, seizes the inheritance of antiquity." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 21 

Reich quotes further from the work of Ludwig 
Woltmann, "Die Germanen imd die Renaissance in 
Italien" (1905), in which the effort is made to prove 
that Benvenuto Celhni, Michaelangelo, Lorenzo Ghi- 
berti, Giovanni BelHni, Leonardo da Vinci and Raf- 
fael, were all of German birth or ancestry. He admits 
that this may be merely misplaced erudition, or "stuff 
and twaddle." His point is that it is characteristic, 
that it is taken seriously in Germany, and that it was 
gravely noticed in some of the oldest and most respect- 
able German reviews. He quotes again the author of 
the "Foundations of the XlXth Century," who says, 
apropos of the overrunning of the Lloly Roman Em- 
pire by the Germans : 

"We can regret only one thing — that the German 
did not, everywhere his conquering arm preyed, ex- 
terminate more completely," and that consequently 
the Latins "gradually recovered wide territories from 
the only quickening influence of pure blood and un- 
broken youth, in fact, from the control of the highest 
talent." Elsewhere the same writer laments that Italy 
"is lost, irredeemably lost, because it lacks the inner 
driving power, the greatness of soul which would fit 
its talent. This power comes from Race alone. Italy 
had it as long as it possessed Germans." 

Reich says that Friedrich Lange, erstwhile editor 
of the Tdgliche Rundschau, has gone so far as to in- 
vent and preach a species of "German religion" 
{Deutsche Religion), and from many pulpits it has 



22 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

been announced that "the German people is the elect of 
God, and its enemies are the enemies of the Lord." 

He quotes from the "Vorwarts" an extract from 
an oration by the theologian, Lezius : 

"Solomon has said : 'Do not be too good ; do not 
be too just.' The PoHsh press should be simply anni- 
hilated. All Polish societies should be suppressed, 
without the slightest apology being made for such a 
measure. This summary procedure should be like- 
wise applied to the French and Danish press, as well 
as to the societies of Alsace, Lorraine and Schles- 
wig-Holstein. Especially should no consideration 
whatever be shown to anything relating to the Poles. 
The Constitution should be altered with regard to the 
latter. The Poles should be looked upon as helots. 
They should be allowed but three privileges : to pay 
taxes, serve in the army, and shut their jaws" {sic). 

He (Reich) supports his views by the statement 
of the Russian novelist, Dostoiewski, who writes : 

"Chauvinism, pride, and an unlimited confidence 
in their own strength have intoxicated the Germans 
since the war (1870). This people, that has so rarely 
been a conqueror and has so often been conquered, 
had all of a sudden beaten the nation that had humil- 
iated all the other nations. . . . On the other 
hand, the fact that Germany, but yesterday all par- 
celled out, has been able in so short a time to develop 
so strong a political organization, might well lead the 
Germans to believe that they are about to enter on a 
new phase of brilliant development. This conviction 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 23 

has resulted in making the German not only Chau- 
vinistic and conceited, but flightly as well; it is not 
only the Teutonic grocer and shoemaker now who 
are over-confident, but professors, eminent scientists, 
and even the ministers themselves as well." 

"No wonder that the arrogance of the 'Elect 
Ones of God' comes out at every possible and im- 
possible occasion. When Bismarck was asked what 
he would do, should some one hundred thousand 
British soldiers be landed on the north coast of Ger- 
many in case of a war with Great Britain, France and 
Germany, he replied: 'I should have them arrested 
by the police.' " 

He continues : 

"Can one wonder, under such circumstances, that 
the Kaiser a few years ago, at the celebration of the 
two hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the 
Kingdom of Prussia, exclaimed: 'Nothing must be 
settled in this world without the intervention of Ger- 
many and of the German Emperor.' " 

He might have added the following : 

"Only one is master of this country. That is I. 
Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces. . . . 
Sic volo, sic jubeo. . . . We HohenzoUerns take 
our crown from God alone, and to God alone we are 
responsible in the fulfilment of our duty. . . . 
Suprema lex regis voluntas." — J. Ellis Barker, an 
English writer, born and educated in Germany. (The 
Nineteenth Century, September, 1914.) (7) 



24 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

He might also have quoted Professor Rudolf 
Eucken of the University of Jena, a leader of German 
ethical thought : 

"To us more than any other nation is intrusted 
the true structure of human existence; as an intellec- 
tual people we have, irrespective of creeds, worked 
for soul depth in religion, for scientific thorough- 
ness. . . . All this constitutes possessions of 
which mankind cannot be deprived; possessions, the 
loss of which would make life and effort purposeless 
to mankind." (8) 

The Berlin Deutsche Tagesseitung urges the ne- 
cessity of forcing the German language on the whole 
world. 

"It is a crying necessity," the Berlin paper says, 
"that German should replace English as the world 
language. Should the English language be victori- 
ous and become the world language the culture of 
mankind will stand before a closed door and the death 
knell will sound for civilization." 

After talking of the "moral decay" of Great 
Britain and the "fearful brutalizing influences and 
complete animalization of the human species" in 
"every land where the English language is spoken" the 
Deutsche Tagesseitung continues : 

"Here we have the reason why it is necessary for 
the German, and with him the German language, to 
conquer. And the victory once won, be it now or be 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 25 

it one hundred years hence, there remains a task for 
the German than which none is more important, that 
of forcing the German tongue on the world. On all 
men, not those belonging to the more cultured races 
only, but on men of all colors and nationalities, the 
German language acts as a blessing which, coming 
direct from the hand of God, sinks into the heart like 
a precious balm and ennobles it. 

"English, the bastard tongue of the canting island 
pirates, must be swept from the place it has usurped 
and forced back into the remotest corners of Britain 
until it has returned to its original elements of an in- 
significant pirate dialect." 

Major-General von Disfurth (retired), in an ar- 
ticle contributed to the Hamburg Nachrichten, writes 
as follows : 

"No object whatever can be served by taking any 
notice of the accusations of barbarity leveled against 
Germany by their foreign critics. We owe no ex- 
planations to any one. Whatever act committed by 
our troops for the purpose of discouraging, defeating 
and destroying the enemy is a brave act and fully 
justified. Germany stands the supreme arbiter of her 
own methods. It is no consequence whatever if all 
the monuments ever created, all the pictures ever 
painted, all the buildings ever erected by the great 
architects of the world be destroyed, if by their de- 
struction we promoted Germany's victory. War is 
war. The ugliest stone placed to mark the burial of 
a German grenadier is a more glorious monument 
than all cathedrals Europe put together. They call 
us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their 
abuse. 



26 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"For my part I hope that in this war we have 
merited the title, barbarians. Let neutral peoples and 
our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may 
well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them 
cease to talk of the Cathedral of Rheims, and of all 
the churches and all the castles in France which have 
shared its fate. Our troops must achieve victory. 
What else matters?" 

Professor Adolph Lasson, a German Privy Coun- 
cillor and Professor of Philosophy in Berlin Univer- 
sity, writes : 

"A man who is not a German knows nothing of 
Germany. We are morally and intellectually superior 
beyond all comparison as are our organizations and 
our institutions." 

As to the facts bearing upon this preposterous 
overvaluation of German achievement, I shall have 
something to say later, but at present my object is to 
present a small portion of the evidence of the state of 
mind which, pervading all Germany, did so much to 
bring on the war. 

Reich further quotes Treitschke as follows : 

"Then when the German flag flies over and pro- 
tects this vast Empire, to whom will belong the sceptre 
of the universe? What nation will impose its wishes 
on the other enfeebled and decadent peoples? Will 
it not be Germany that will have the mission to ensure 
the peace of the world ? Russia, that immense colos- 
sus still in process of formation, and with feet of clay. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 27 

will be absorbed in its home and economic difficulties. 
England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will, 
without any doubt, see her colonies detach themselves 
from her and exhaust themselves in fruitless strug- 
gles. France, given over to internal dissensions and 
the strife of parties, will sink into hopeless decad- 
ence. As to Italy, she will have her work cut out to 
ensure a crust of bread to her children. . . . 
The future belongs to Germany, to which Austria 
will attach herself if she wishes to survive." 



Reich gives many other quotations to support his 
main thesis, judgment on which I must now leave to 
my readers. It was as follows, and it must be remem- 
bered that it was written more than seven years ago : 

"The actions of a nation like the Germans are, 
in the first place, influenced by their state of mind; 
and, given that that state of mind in Germany is now 
one bordering on absolute megalomania, or the most 
morbid form of self-conceit and swelled-headedness, 
it is safe to conclude that their actions, too, will soon 
assume forms of the most daring self-assertiveness 
and aggression." (9) 

While opinions differ as to the personal responsi- 
bility of the Kaiser for this war, it seems to me that 
he so fully typifies in his own character, actions and 
behavior, the megalomania of the nation that it is 
nothing less than absurd to describe him as reluctantly 
pushed into the war and as struggling until the last 
moment for peace. 



28 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

The Kaiser is in all probability a neuropsycho- 
pathic, said to have a chronic and recurring infection 
of the middle ear (a not unknown cause of grave cere- 
bral disease), and evincing many symptoms of the con- 
dition known as paranoia, in which there are usually 
present more or less definite systematized delusions, 
the other mental processes remaining approximately 
normal. If in such case the insane premises of the 
paranoiac are admitted, his conclusions will often 
legitimately follow. If the Kaiser is Kaiser by Divine 
decree, by the direct appointment of God, as he has 
repeatedly asserted, he cannot be blamed for thinking, 
as he has often shown that he does think, that what- 
ever he does is right. But is it possible in the year 
1914 that a quite sane person can beHeve, as the 
Kaiser surely does believe, that he is God's special 
appointee — appointed to rule over and guide the des- 
tinies of sixty millions of people? I have no doubt 
the Miinsterbergs will have some answer to that ques- 
tion that will — to them — be psychologically satisfying. 
But I defy them to answer it to the satisfaction of the 
American people. 

That this mental condition is compatible with un- 
usual ability, with a high degree of personal charm, 
with the efficient performance of work and discharge 
of duties outside the sphere of delusion, has been re- 
peatedly and abundantly shown and is a matter of 
everyday experience with alienists. 

The history of the world also presents many ex- 
amples of individuals not entirely sane, like Joan of 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 29 

Arc, and Luther, who were able greatly to influence — 
largely through their profound belief in themselves 
and their cause — the course of human events. 

One of the best illustrations of the "delirium of 
grandeur" with which the Kaiser appears to be 
afflicted (and with which on account of its frequency 
in ordinary lunatics all medical men are familiar) is 
given in this very belief in his Divine vice-gerency and 
in his constant and familiar references to God in his 
speeches, letters and telegrams. 

The Dean of American letters, Mr. William D. 
Howells, has dealt so eloquently with this phase — and 
other phases — of the Kaiser's character (North 
American Review, October, 1914) that I shall let him 
continue this answer to the second portion of Question 
1 — ^believing that the Kaiser represents in an exag- 
gerated form (due probably to disease), the megalo- 
mania of the nation, and believing also that what Mr. 
Howells writes of him represents with equal truth the 
estimate of him held to-day by the large majority of 
Americans. 

"As early as August 22nd the censorship of war 
news allowed us to learn that 'the Kaiser had ordered 
the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Church 
throughout Germany to include the following prayer 
in the liturgy at all public services during the war: 
'Almighty and merciful God of the armies, we be- 
seech in humility for Thy Almighty aid for our Ger- 
man fatherland. Bless the entire German war force. 
Lead us to victory and give us Thy grace that we may 



30 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

show ourselves to be Christians toward our enemies. 
As well, let us soon arrive at peace which will ever- 
lastingly safeguard our free and independent Ger- 
many.' 

"This carefully worded supplication must have 
been instantly rushed to the Throne of Grace, to the 
Father of Mercies, to Him without whose knowledge 
not even a sparrow falls to the ground, and the re- 
sponse might seem to have been instant, for we read 
that on the 25th the Kaiser wired his daughter-in- 
law, the Crown Princess : 

" T rejoice with thee over the first victory of 
Wilhelm. God has been on his side and has most bril- 
liantly supported him. To Him be thanks and honor. 
I remit to Wilhelm the Iron Cross of the second and 
first class. . ... God protect and succor my boys. 
Also in the future God be with thee and all wives. 
'(Signed) Papa Wilhelm.' 

"But in some respects this was apparently asking 
too much. In spite of the flattering recognition of 
His support of the Crown Prince, He seems to have 
thought it enough to be only with the Crown Princess 
'in the future.' He evidently could not be bothered 
to look after 'all wives,' for we read that the wives of 
unarmed peasants and citizens were driven, with their 
children, from their homes in a country which Papa 
Wilhelm was wasting with fire and sword through a 
violation of its rights as a neutral nation and of his 
own word solemnly given, and went wandering beg- 
gared through their native land. Other wives were 
slain at their hearthstones by Papa Wilhelm's artil- 
lery, or torn to pieces in their beds by bombs dropped 
from Papa Wilhelm's dirigibles flying over sleeping 
towns. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 31 

"So far as 'all wives' were concerned, the Helper 
of the widow and the orphan was not so constant as 
Papa Wilhelm desired, though Papa Wilhelm had 
especially commended them to His care, Yet Papa 
Wilhelm did not lose heart, for in a telegram of the 
27th we find him declaring from his headquarters on 
the Main, 'Confidence in the irresistible might of our 
heroic army and unshakable belief in the help of a 
living God, together with the consciousness that we 
are fighting for a worthy cause, should give us faith 
in an early delivery of Germany from its enemies.' 

"It may be that the Supreme Being, the 'living 
God' as the first of living men here handsomely calls 
Him, was perhaps not really so very hand-in-glove 
with the Kaiser. It may be that He did not 'bril- 
liantly support' the Crown Prince in battle, and that 
it was solely 'the invincible might of his heroic army' 
which gave the Kaiser early victory. For Papa Wil- 
helm had been training them in their work of mul- 
tiple murder for forty years, incessantly, relentlessly, 
at the cost of the best years of their youth, of their 
freedom, of whatever makes life sweet and dear. To 
perfect the pitiless machine into which he turned a 
kindly people he spared no means known to the art of 
the oppressor; he sacrificed to this end truth and 
honor and the love of men ; he substituted the terror 
of lese majeste for patriotic loyalty; he made revenge 
and hate the prime motives of the nation which he 
welded into an adamantine mass to be hurled, when 
the time came, against another nation which he had 
schooled them, in the uttermost cruelty of fear, to 
abhor. In this work he signed promises which trust- 
ing nations took for treaties with all the sacred and 
solemn guarantees, but which his ministers called 
'scraps of paper' when the convenient time came. He 



32 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

made their commanders the terror of the men, and he 
perpetuated among the officers of his army the code 
of the duel ; by his will the law of the sword became 
supreme against the law of the land in any question 
between soldiers and civilians. He turned the tide of 
civilization from its flow toward peace and good- 
will, and drove its stream back among the morasses 
of the past, where it was choked with the corpses of 
the immemorial dead, the embers of their homes, and 
the ruins of their altars, so that when the time came to 
destroy a peaceful city his soldiers were as ready to 
do his will as they were to drive the wedge of their 
bodies through the enemy's lines and to fall in heaps 
that stayed their advance. 

"There is no means of telling just yet what the 
effect of his prayers has been with the Heavenly 
Father, or whether in the event they will avail against 
the prayers of the Belgians, the French, the English, 
and the Russians, beseeching the same God for vic- 
tory against him. Who, indeed, always excepting the 
German Emperor, may declare what dwells in the will 
of the Almighty, or what His purpose is? Will He 
continue His brilliant support of the Crown Prince, 
or will He lift up His countenance and make it to 
shine upon the peoples who have, humanly speaking, 
been cruelly outraged in all that is dear to civilized 
men, whose lands have been overrun by invading 
armies, whose cities have been burned, whose fields 
have been laid waste, whose wives and little ones have 
been driven beggars into the wilderness which wanton 
invasion has made of their country? At the actual 
writing it seems as if the Creator of heaven and earth 
may have thought twice concerning His imperial 
protege, and ceased to 'bless the whole German force.' 
Part of this force is now retracing its bleeding steps. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 33 

slowly indeed, and perhaps not finally ; its retreat may 
be merely the recoil of the wild beast for another 
spring upon its prey; but as yet it does not seem so, 
and humanity may begin to breathe again. No one 
except the Kaiser may guess at the unfathomable 
counsels of the Ancient of Days." 

It seems unnecessary to multiply evidence that 
the Kaiser has a form of megalomania that amounts to 
disease, or that he, unfortunately, in this respect, rep- 
resents with fair accuracy, the present frame of mind 
— probably only temporary — of the German nation. 

But I shall add one additional bit of testimony, 
just at hand. It may be untrustworthy, but it has the 
earmarks of genuineness. 

An order issued by "Papa Wilhelm" to his troops 
in East Prussia is said (10) to read in part as follows: 

"Thanks to the valor of my heroes, France has 
been severely punished. Belgium, which interfered 
with our attack, has been added to the glorious prov- 
inces of Germany. From the course of military 
events you know that the punitive expedition into 
Russia has also been a brilliant success. 

"My heroes, the hour of trial has now come for 
you and for the whole of Germany. If Germany is 
dear to you — if your families are dear to you — if your 
culture, your faith, your nation, your Emperor, are 
dear to you, you will offer the enemy worthy re- 
sistance." 

I ask the reader to note the crescendo — from 
"Germany" through "families," "culture," "faith," 



34 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

and the "nation" up to the "Emperor !" Also the an- 
nounced addition of Belgium to the "glorious prov- 
inces of Germany." 

The Kaiser may not have written this, but, if he 
didn't, the author takes rank with Chatterton. There 
is a "condensed novel" in those paragraphs worthy of 
Bret Harte or Leacock. 

But, after all, the question of the exact mental 
condition of the Kaiser is not of fundamental impor- 
tance. His power is unquestioned, his leadership in- 
disputable. He stands to-day before the world as the 
embodiment of the spirit of the school of the Bern- 
hardis and Treitschkes. He is the apotheosis of the 
Miinsterberg idea of an Emperor as "the symbol of 
the State." 

The world believes that had he so willed this war 
would not have occurred. Whether his will to war 
was — however indefensible and brutal — a sanely rea- 
soned determination, or the irresistible impulse of a 
mental defective the world may never know. As I 
have said, nozv it is not important. 



II 

What is the evidence as to the events immediately 
leading tip to the war in their relation to the culpability 
of Germany? 

A. As I was trying to formulate my ideas in 
reply to this question, there appeared in the public 
press ( 1 1 ) a most illuminating and convincing article 
from the pen of one of the leaders of the American 
Bar, Mr. James M. Beck. He propounds at the outset 
three questions: Was Austria justified in declaring 
war against Servia? Was Germany justified in de- 
claring war against Russia and France? Was Eng- 
land justified in declaring war against Germany? 

He reviews in a masterly manner all the official 
and documentary evidence now before the world, and 
assumes that it is to be presented to a "Supreme Court 
of Civilization" for consideration and judgment. 

In reply to the last of these questions he cites the 
solemn treaty of 1839, whereby Prussia, France, Eng- 
land, Austria and Russia "became the guarantors" of 
the "perpetual neutrality" of Belgium, which treaty 
was reaffirmed by Count Bismarck, then Chancellor 
of the German Empire, on July 22, 1870, and even 
more recently (1913) by the German Secretary of 
State, who said in the Reichstag: 

"The neutrality of Belgium is determined by 
international conventions, and Germany is resolved 
to respect these conventions." 

(35) 



36 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

To confirm this solemn assurance, the Minister 
of War added in the same debate : 

"Belgium does not play any part in the justifica- 
tion of the German scheme of military reorganization. 
The scheme is justified by. the position of matters in 
the East. Germany will not lose sight of the fact that 
Belgium neutrality is guaranteed by international 
treaties." 

A year later, on July 31, 1914, Herr von Buelow, 
the German Minister at Brussels, assured the Belgian 
Department of State that he knew of a declaration 
which the German Chancellor had made in 1911 to 
the effect "that Germany had no intention of violat- 
ing our (Belgium's) neutrality," and "that he was cer- 
tain that the sentiments to which expression was 
given at that time had not changed.'' (See Belgian 
"Gray Book," Nos. 11 and 12.) 

Mr. Beck says it seems unnecessary to discuss the 
wanton disregard of these solemn obligations and 
protestations, when the present Chancellor of the Ger- 
man Empire, in his speech to the Reichstag and to the 
world on August 4, 1914, frankly admitted that the 
action of the German military machine in invading 
Belgium was a wrong. He said: 

"We are now in a state of necessity, and neces- 
sity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxem- 
burg and perhaps are already on Belgian soil. Gen- 
tlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international 
law. . . . The wrong, I speak openly — that we 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 37 

are committing we will endeavor to make good as 
soon as our military goal has been reached. Any- 
body who is threatened as we are threatened, and is 
fighting for his highest possessions, can only have one 
thought — hozv he is to hack his way through." 



Mr. Beck might have added that by this same 
treaty Belgium had pledged herself to resist any vio- 
lation of her neutrality, and that it was not only her 
right but her duty to bar the way to the march of 
Germany's legions across the land. Mr. Beck con- 
tinues as to the German Chancellor's "defence" by 
saying that it is not even a plea of confession and 
avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of the 
world. It has one merit — that it does not add to the 
crime the aggravation of hypocrisy. It virtually rests 
the case of Germany upon the Gospel of Treitschke 
and Bernhardi, which was taught far more effectively 
by Machiavelli in his treatise, "The Prince," wherein 
he glorified the policy of Cesare Borgia in trampling 
the weaker States of Italy under foot by ruthless ter- 
rorism, unbridled ferocity and the basest deception. 
The wanton destruction of Belgium is simply Borgia- 
ism amplified ten thousand fold by the mechanical re- 
sources of modern war. 

As to this point, Mr. Beck concludes that unless 
our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of 
barbarism ; unless the law of the world is in fact only 
the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the can- 
non: unless mankind after uncounted centuries has 



38 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

made no real advance in political morality beyond that 
of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany fails 
to show a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." 
Germany's contention that a treaty of peace is "a 
scrap of paper," to be disregarded at will when re- 
quired by the selfish interests of one contracting party, 
is the negation of all that civilization stands for. 

"Belgium has been crucified in the face of the 
world. Its innocence of any offence, until it was 
attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary 
immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of neu- 
trality will 'plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, 
against the deep damnation of its taking off.' On 
that issue the Supreme Court could have no ground 
for doubt or hesitation. Its judgment would be 
speedy and inexorable." 

Mr. Beck then goes on to discuss the evidence 
offered to the public in the British and German "White 
Papers" and the "Russian Orange Paper," and asks 
what verdict an impartial and dispassionate court 
would render upon the issues thus raised and the evi- 
dence thus submitted. He says: 

"Primarily such a court would be deeply im- 
pressed not only by what the record as thus made up 
discloses, hut also by the significant omissions of 
documents known to be in existence. 

"The official defence of England and Russia does 
not apparently show any failure on the part of either 
to submit all of the documents in their possession, 
but the German White Paper' on its face discloses 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 39 

the suppression of documents of vital importance, 
while Austria has as yet failed to submit any of the 
documentary evidence in its possession. 

"We know from the German 'White Paper' — 
even if we did not conclude as a matter of irresist- 
ible inference — that many important communications 
passed in this crisis between Germany and Austria, 
and it is probable that some communications must 
also have passed between those two countries and 
Italy. Italy, despite its embarrassing position, owes 
to the world the duty of a full disclosure. What such 
disclosure would probably show is indicated by her 
deliberate conclusion that her allies had commenced 
an aggressive war, which released her from any ob- 
ligation under the Triple Alliance." 

His conclusion as to this point is that until Ger- 
many is willing to put the most important documents 
in its possession in evidence, it must not be surprised 
that the world, remembering Bismarck's garbling of 
the Ems dispatch, which precipitated the Franco- 
Prussian war, will be incredulous as to the sincerity 
of Germany's mediatory efforts. 

He then reviews the entire diplomatic corre- 
spondence, as published, repeatedly calling attention 
to the absence of important documents from the Ger- 
man and Austrian records. He finds that those two 
nations were guilty not only of concealment or sup- 
pression of portions of the record, while Germany was 
pretending to lay its case unreservedly before the 
world, but that they were "diplomatic pettifoggers" 
who took a "colossal snap judgment" ; that the Ger- 



40 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

man Secretary of State was guilty of a "plain eva- 
sion," the German Imperial Chancellor of a "pitiful 
and insincere quibble," of "hypocrisy," of "arro- 
gance" and "unreasonableness." Of one contention 
of the German Secretary of State, that Austria might 
act in disregard of Germany's wish in a matter of 
common concern, he says : 

"This strains human credulity to the breaking 
point. Did the German Secretary of State keep a 
straight face when he uttered this sardonic pleas- 
antry? It may be the duty of a diplomat to he on 
occasion, but is it ever necessary to utter such a stu- 
pid falsehood? The German Secretary of State sar- 
donically added in the same conversation that he was 
not sure that the effort for peace had not hastened the 
declaration of war, as though the declaration of war 
against Servia had not been planned and expected 
from the first." 

Mr. Beck does not fail to call attention to the fact 
that— 

"In reaching its conclusion our imaginary court 
would pay little attention to mere professions of a 
desire for peace. . . ." 

"No war in modem times has been begun with- 
out the aggressor pretending that his nation wished 
nothing but peace, and invoking Divine aid for its 
murderous policy. To paraphrase the words of Lady 
Teazle on a noted occasion when Sir Joseph Surface 
talked much of 'honor,* it might be as well in such 
instances to leave the name of God out of the ques- 
tion." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 41 

The Judgment of the Court he says would be un- 
hesitatingly as follows: 

"1. That Germany and Austria in a time of 
profound peace secretly concerted together to impose 
their will upon Europe and upon Servia in a matter 
affecting the balance of power in Europe. Whether 
in so doing they intended to precipitate a European 
war to determine the mastery of Europe is not satis- 
factorily established, although their whole course of 
conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made 
war almost inevitable by (a) issuing an ultimatum 
that was grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to 
any grievance that Austria had and (b) in giving to 
Servia, and Europe, insufficient time to consider the 
rights and obligations of all interested nations. 

"2. That Germany had at all times the power 
to compel Austria to preserve a reasonable and con- 
ciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted 
that influence. On the contrary, she certainly abetted, 
and possibly instigated, Austria in its unreasonable 
course. 

"3. That England, France, Italy and Russia at 
all times sincerely worked for peace, and for this 
purpose not only overlooked the original misconduct 
of Austria, but made every reasonable concession in 
the hope of preserving peace. 

"4. That Austria, having mobilized its army, 
Russia was reasonably justified in mobilizing its 
forces. Such act of mobilization was the right of any 
sovereign State, and as long as the Russian armies 
did not cross the border or take any aggressive action 
no other nation had any just right to complain, each 
having the same right to make similar preparations. 



42 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"S. That Germany, in abruptly declaring war 
against Russia for failure to demobilize when the 
other Powers had offered to make any reasonable 
concession and peace parleys were still in progress, 
precipitated the war." 

He adds that — 

"The German nation has been plunged into this 
abyss by its scheming statesmen and its self-centred 
and highly neurotic Kaiser, who in the twentieth cen- 
tury sincerely believes that he is the proxy of Al- 
mighty God on earth, and therefore infallible." 

Since his article appeared, another labored de- 
fence of Germany has been sent to America, and, 
fathered by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, at one time the 
German Colonial Secretary, and said to be "now Ger- 
many's most conspicuous advocate in the United 
States," has been given to the American press. It 
still further illustrates many of the points already- 
made. For example, it speaks again of the mythical 
French attack upon Germany across Belgium, resting 
the assertion "upon absolutely unimpeachable infor- 
mation," which it does not give. Such attempts as 
have been made to sustain this eleventh-hour defence 
are, so far as I have seen, like many of those in the 
German "White Paper," based on similarly vague and 
unsupported statements. The whole effort in this last 
lengthy and involved document is to try to show that 
Russia is "responsible for the war," that England 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 43 

"was fully cognizant of this fact," and that the lat- 
ter's "claim that she entered this war solely as the 
protector of small nations is a fable." 

So far as I know, no such claim has been made 
by England. The word "solely" is interpolated to 
make the German case stronger. In fact, in the reply 
by the English professors and men of science to the 
learned men of Germany responsible for "The Truth 
About Germany" (page ^7), the former say with 
emphasis : 

"Great Britain, together with France, Russia, 
Prussia and Austria, had solemnly guaranteed the 
neutrality of Belgium. In the preservation of this 
neutrality our deepest sentiments and our most vital 
interests are alike involved. Its violation would not 
only shatter the independence of Belgium itself : it 
would undermine the whole basis which renders pos- 
sible the neutrality of any State and the very exist- 
ence of such States as are much weaker than their 
neighbors. We acted in 1914 just as we acted in 
1870." 

But if the claim had been made, it would have had 
greater inherent probability and would be far more 
strongly upheld and substantiated by the admitted 
facts than is this last absurd effort to represent Ger- 
many as resisting "with quiet poHteness" a demand, 
"as a price of British neutrality" to consent to her own 
"humiliation" and "retirement from the position of a 
Great Power." 



44 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

Is it likely that a nation — or two nations — obvi- 
ously, as events have shown, unprepared for immediate 
war would have made such a demand upon the great- 
est military Power the world has ever seen, at a time 
when, as events have also shown, she was ready to 
the last apparently petty detail to challenge, if need 
be. United Europe? Does not every intelligent person 
in the world know that her early successes, on the 
offensive, were due to this very preparedness, which 
her opponents could at the time but feebly imitate? 
And since then, in her remarkable defensive campaign, 
was not her temporary safety assured by these same 
preparations, so complete last August that it is scarcely 
conceivable that they could have been bettered by or 
through delay ? 

But even in this paper the same clums)^ confusion 
between ''Might" and "Right" which has put Ger- 
many on the defensive before the civilized world is 
once more shown. I wish I had space to quote in full 
that part of this "Review of Official War-Papers." 
It speaks of the "heavy heart" with which Germany, 
"following the law of self-preservation," "decided to 
violate the neutrality of Belgium." It says that after 
England had informed the Belgians — as by solemn 
contract and by every law of honor and decency she 
was bound to do — that she would support them in case 
"Germany applied pressure to induce them to depart 
from neutrality" — England's own words — "Belgian 
fanaticism broke loose against Germany." 

Can Americans read with any patience the Ger- 



A . WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 45 

man expressions of ex post facto regret — the hypo- 
critical assumption that they are discharging a sacred 
duty? 

"By nobody," says the Kolnische Zeitung (close 
to the Berlin authorities), "is the fate of Belgium, 
the burning down of every building, the destruction 
of Louvain, so deeply deplored as by the German peo- 
ple and our brave troops, who felt bound to carry 
out to the bitter end the chastisement they were com- 
pelled to inflict." 

Every burglar who, caught red-handed and re- 
sisted, added murder to his other crimes, might with 
equal force "deeply deplore" the "necessity" that 
"compelled" him to "inflict chastisement." 

It is nauseating. 

And through it all outcrops at all sorts of mal- 
apropos times their insufferable self-appreciation. 

"We, however," say the Berlin Tageszeitung, "do 
not need to regard the public opinion of the world. 
In the last instance the German people, united with 
the Emperor, are alone competent to decide the cor- 
rectness of Germany's course." 



The plea of "necessity" constantly recurs in the 
German apologiae, and was symbolized and summar- 
ized by Gerhart Hauptmann, the German dramatist, in 
his reply to an appeal from the Frenchman, Romain 
RoUand, author of "Jean Christophe": 



46 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"Our jealous enemies forged an iron ring around 
our breast and we knew our breast had to expand, 
that it had to split asunder this ring, or else we had 
to cease breathing." 



Translated into plain English, dear reader, this 
is as if your neighbor Schmidt, his family having 
somewhat outgrown the modest residence in which he 
began housekeeping, had called God to witness that 
in the Holy name of Family it was necessary for 
him to take your house and that of his other neighbor 
Claretie (and some of your outlying farms), and that 
it was also necessary (under God's guidance) to get 
at you through the property of a third neighbor, 
Vandervelde, which property, as the latter objected 
and resisted, it was further necessary to burn and de- 
stroy together with many of Vandervelde's children 
and his wife. 

Chesterton has well summed up the German 
ethics. They have been told by their politicians that 
all arrangements dissolve before "necessity." That 
is the importance of the German Chancellor's phrase, 
excusing and explaining the violation of the neutrality 
of Belgium: *'We are now in a state of necessity and 
necessity knows no law." He did not allege some spe- 
cial excuse in the case of Belgium, which might make 
it an exception to the rule. He distinctly argued, as on 
a principle applicable to other cases, that victory was 
a necessity and honor was a scrap of paper. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 47 

"The Prussians had made a new discovery," 
- says Chesterton, "in international politics — that it 
may often be convenient to make a promise and yet 
curiously inconvenient to keep it. . . . They, 
therefore, promised England a promise on condition 
that she broke a promise and on the implied condition 
that the new promise might be broken as easily as 
the old one." 

This, after all, well summarizes an important part 
of the German "diplomacy." 

To return to Mr. Beck's paper, I beg to say 
finally that I have quoted some of his conclusions with- 
out his arguments, because, while the latter were in- 
capable of satisfactory condensation, within my limits, 
I wanted to call particular attention to the impression 
made on the highly trained mind of one representative 
American by the documents on which the German and 
German-American special pleaders largely rest their 
case. 



What has been the attitude of the Germai'i apolo- 
gists in relation to Belgium since the violation of neu- 
trality f 

A. Professor Weber, of Kiel, said to be "very 
close to Prince Henry of Prussia and the Hohenzollern 
family," writes to an American friend (12) : 

"It has been proved with certainty that Belgium 
had already entered into agreements with France 
long before the war to permit the passage of hostile 
troops through Belgium, perhaps even to take the 
field with them against us. 

"By this means Belgium had already surrendered 
her neutrality and had actually taken a stand with 
our enemies. That we with one bold blow should 
. dare to take the Belgium fortress is, therefore, easy to 
understand. We have been far too lenient in that we 
wished to give back to the Belgians their land un- 
harmed after the fall of Liege. 

"Since the Belgians were so deceived as not to 
accept this magnanimous offer, they must bitterly 
atone for it." 

As usual, nothing worthy of being called "proof" 
has been adduced in support of this statement and ad- 
miration for the "magnanimity" which led Germany 
to offer to give back to the Belgians their own land 
must be withheld. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 49 

Dr. Herman Hilprecht says that the Belgian Gov- 
ernment "stubbornly declined the German proposi- 
tion" — to allow the latter to violate the treaty of neu- 
trality — and then attempts to justify fully and without 
reservation the subsequent over-running of Belgium 
and the pillage and destruction of Louvain. (13) 

Much precisely similar testimony might be ad- 
duced, chiefly from German-American sources, and 
would amply suffice to show the mistake of the Ameri- 
can writer who said ( 14) : 

"The government of Germany has announced 
that 'the occupation of Belgium is now virtually com- 
plete'; and the people of the empire are celebrating 
the achievement with pride and exultation. Thus is 
closed one of the bloodiest chapters in the war — and 
one of the darkest chapters in the records of inter- 
national dishonor. 

"No matter what horrors may await the world in 
the unfolding of the dreadful conflict, none can ex- 
ceed in poignant tragedy the fate of this devoted peo- 
ple. From the time of Caesar the bravery and the 
dauntless independence of the Belgians have been 
celebrated by historians and sung by poets. And 
now these high qualities have inspired a supreme 
demonstration of heroism and sacrifice which makes 
all humanity the debtor of the martyred nation. 

"This is the one phase of the war which can be 
discussed almost without raising controversy. Upon 
the issues of Prussian policy, French hatred, British 
jealousy and Russian plotting, advocates on either 
side wax furiously eloquent and raise questions which 
their opponents are taxed to answer. 



50 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"But upon the hideous wrong perpetrated upon 
Belgium the most ruthless devotee of militarism, the 
most fanatical exponent of imperialistic destiny and 
the rights of 'culture/ must take refuge in silence or 
falter out feeble extenuation. The facts of history, 
the records of diplomacy and the principles of inter- 
national justice converge here to denounce an act 
unparalleled in its cruelty and perfidy." 

Unfortunately, since this was written, the imperi- 
alistic and "cultured" fanatics have shown that they 
have no idea of taking refuge in silence, but fatuously 
believe that they can impose upon a thinking and rea- 
soning world a view that it has already contemptuously 
and with practical unanimity rejected. 

The same writer gives a brief outline of the case 
(from a slightly different standpoint from that of Mr. 
Beck), brings it down to date, and continues : 

"This [the treaty of 1839, etc., see p. 35] was 
the record upon which Belgium stood when the 
troops of the Kaiser crossed her frontiers on August 
2 last. The German government, having already vio- 
lated the territory of Luxemburg, demanded passage 
for its forces through the country whose integrity it 
was sworn to honor and protect. With unblushing 
effrontery it called this demand a request for 'friendly 
neutrality,' and declared that in case of opposition 
Germany would 'consider Belgium as an enemy.' 

"There was here a double crime. Germany not 
only foreswore her own covenant, but undertook to 
penalize Belgium for observing that country's solemn 
obligation; for, of course, consent by Belgium to the 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 51 

free passage of the Kaiser's forces would have been 
a repudiation of the treaty by Belgium and tanta- 
mount to an act of war against France. 

"Apologists for the invasion have attempted to 
set up two defences. The first is that France was 
preparing to violate the treaty, and that Germany 
simply forestalled her. Fortunately, there are records 
which utterly disprove this pretence. After Ger- 
many's ultimatum, France offered the services of five 
army corps to Belgium to defend her neutrality. The 
answer was : 

" 'We are sincerely grateful to the French gov- 
ernment for offering eventual support. In the actual 
circumstances, however, we do not propose to appeal 
to the guarantee of the Powers. The Belgian gov- 
ernment will decide later on the action which they 
may think it necessary to take.' 

"Belgium preferred to make her first appeal to 
Germany's sense of honor, and, when that failed, to 
the heroic resistance of a wronged people. And 
France was so ill-prepared for the invasion which 
Germany says she plotted that ten days elapsed be- 
fore she had her forces in the neutral territory. 

"The second excuse offered in ex post facto 
palliation of the offense is that in the Belgian archives 
Germany has found dispatches showing that in 1906 
the British military attache and the Belgian general 
staff discussed tentatively plans for landing a British 
force to defend Belgian neutrality if it were attacked. 
It shows the desperate nature of the German case 
when this incident is cited to justify a brutal invasion. 

"The arrangement for giving help to Belgium, if 
needed, was discussed at the time Germany had thrust 
herself to the verge of war with France over Mo- 
rocco; and the proposal of Great Britain to defend 



52 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

the neutrality of Belgium, as she was bound to do, 
was as creditable as Germany's violation of that neu- 
trality was dishonorable. 

"All the eloquence and sophistries of the pro- 
fessors, poets, and psychologists advocating the Ger- 
man cause cannot remove the black stain of this deed. 
The facts are irrefutable, and the proof of guilt 
inexorable." 



It seems not worth while further to elaborate the 
evidence as to the criminal and altogether indefensible 
position in which Germany finds herself in regard to 
Belgium. She has forfeited the respect of the civil- 
ized world. Her "promises" and "pledges" and 
"guarantees" will, as long as the present ruling class 
is in power, be regarded with contempt or derision by 
other nations. So far as the Belgian question relates 
to America, however, I have nowhere seen the issue 
better expressed than by Mr. Joseph C. Fraley, of 
Philadelphia, who, in a brochure entitled "How and 
Why a War Lord Wages War" (which all Ameri- 
cans should read), says: 

"We know that the one hope of stopping wars, 
is to supply a world wide sanction for the support 
of international laws and morals. We have nothing 
to do with the reasons which led certain powers to 
engage that Belgian territory should be neutral in 
time of war. We have everything to do with this 
particular instance of treaty breaking, in that it con- 
stitutes a new departure, a crime against all neu- 
trals. Treaties made for peace conditions are ob- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 53 

viously liable to be broken in war, but a treaty made 
with special reference to war, belongs to that class 
of obligations whose infringement is like cheating at 
cards. The offender gets no second chance." 

And yet it takes a German- American (Jastrow) 
to say that the historian of the future will, in analyzing 
the causes of the war, regard the neutrahty of Bel- 
gium " as a very minor factor, perhaps entirely neg- 
ligible" ! 



IV 

Is there any evidence which tends to show why the 
present time was selected by Germany to precipitate 
the war? 

A. Professor Usher, the author of "Pan Ger- 
manism" (where much interestmg matter corrobora- 
tive of the statements of Emil Reich, as to Germany's 
megalom.ania, may be found presented in a more dig- 
nified way), has best answered this question in an 
article on "The Reasons Behind the War." (15) 

In the first place, Austria for centuries has 
dreamed of dominating southeastern Europe, of rul- 
ing the Balkans, of possessing a seacoast on the Adri- 
atic and ^gean. Only the control of Servia can give 
her fully and unreservedly what she desires. More- 
over, under Servia's leadership, once she had recov- 
ered from her great losses in men and resources dur- 
ing the Balkan wars, a strong Slav state might have 
been established in control of all Austria's present ap- 
proaches to the Adriatic. Her motives seem plain, 
and she was in precisely the position, after the mur- 
der of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand, to serve as a cat's- 
paw for her "ally" — and master. But why did the 
latter push her relentlessly into war at this time, when 
ample reparation was offered and further amends were 
easily procurable, as the evidence shows beyond all 

(54) 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 55 

question? The Anglo-Irish difficulties, the Canadian- 
Hindu troubles, the sensational disclosures in the 
French Chamber as to the bad condition of the army, 
the alleged deficiencies in the French aeroplane squad- 
rons, the only partial recovery of Russia from the 
effects of the Japanese war, the exhaustion of the 
Balkan States themselves from their recent wars, even 
the preoccupation of the United States with troubles 
in Mexico, all seemed to preclude the chance of a gen- 
eral interference. 

Professor Usher continues: 

"If such interference took place and a general 
European war resulted, there had not been in twenty 
years anything like as favorable an opportunity for 
the Triple Alliance or one as disadvantageous for 
the Triple Entente. The stake v/as so immense, the 
results of success would be so stupendous, so out of 
proportion, in the case of the Triple Alliance, with 
what they might lose, that the issue of war might even 
be courted with some assurance. . . . 

"The schemes of the Pan-Germanists indeed 

reach to the creation of a vast confederation of states. 

. reaching 'from the North Sea to the Persian 

Gulf, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean,' as one 

of their slogans has it. . . . 

"Of this great scheme (supposing it to be, as 
many claim, the veritable secret policy of the Triple 
Alliance) the undisputed possession of the Balkans 
by the Triple Alliance is the most important single 
factor. . . . 

"As to a general assault upon the Triple Entente, 
the Triple Alliance has long seen two obvious 



56 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

methods, both in the opinion of many, Hkely to be suc- 
cessful ; the one, a long waiting game where the rapid 
growth of the population in Germany, Austria, and 
Italy, and the decline of the rate of growth in France, 
England, and Russia, would in time give the Alliance 
a real preponderance in numbers; the other, a short 
quick blow at some moment when the Triple Alliance 
could bring all its strength to bear and when the 
Triple Entente could not. The former meant, not 
improbably, many years of waiting, and in those years 
much might happen. 

"Thoroughly alive to the situation, the Triple 
Entente had already under execution the prelim- 
inaries of so vast an increase of ofifensive force, and 
showed such a determination to maintain a naval and 
military preponderance, that there would be no alter- 
native but waiting, once these schemes were perfected. 
The French, and particularly the Russian, army was 
to be increased, not only in size, but in efficiency and 
equipment; and an influential minority in England, 
with apparent popular support, was agitating con- 
scription. The English navy was to be much in- 
creased in fighting force by manning at war strength 
in the near future a much larger proportion of ships 
than ever before. Chiefest of all, the Russians were 
building in the Baltic a really formidable fleet, capable 
of contesting the Baltic with Germany and of threat- 
ening the rear of the German fleet in the Atlantic 
to such an extent that united fleet action in the North 
Sea would become an impossibility. 

"If they [the Triple Alliance] were to fight at 
all, they must fight now. Next summer might be too 
late. Now the actual offensive force of their rivals 
was proportionately less than it might be again for 
ten years, and their difficulties at home were collec- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 57 

tively and individually greater than any of the three 
has seen for a generation. 

"So far as the fulfillment of the schemes of Pan- 
Germanism was concerned, the moment was more 
than opportune and might not return." 

Professor Usher seems to me to have sufficiently 
answered Question IV. 



V 

What are the principles represented by the oppos- 
ing forces in this war? 

A. They are absolutism and militarism on the 
one hand and democratic liberty and representative 
government on the other. 

For a century a transference of political power 
from military despots to popular assemblies has been 
going on in western Europe. In Russia and the Far 
East the same gradual shift of forces has been taking 
place. France and Portugal are republics. England 
is democratic. Japan has abandoned feudalism for 
democracy. China is an experimental republic. Rus- 
sia has her Duma. Servia has fought for self-govern- 
ment. The people of Italy have shown their real sen- 
timents by keeping her from fighting against the Al- 
lies. Belgium has a growing and intelligent demo- 
cratic minority of its population. At this critical tide 
in the affairs of the world the inmost feelings of the 
peoples involved, the beliefs and aspirations that are 
a living part of their very being are apt to dominate 
and often — though I admit, not invariably — determine 
their action. 

What is the alignment? 

On one side Germany — with whose ideals and 
purposes we are familiar — Austria, not a real nation, 

(58) 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 59 

but an artificial conglomeration of heterogeneous 
peoples, the mere tool of Germany, and Turkey, now, 
as always, the type of a corrupt fanatic Oriental des- 
potism. 

On the other, France, England, Belgium, Servia, 
Portugal, Russia, Japan. 

And ranged on their side, so far as sympathy 
goes, are the democratic neutral powers, Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, Holland, Italy and the United 
States. 

"The Outlook," which has admirably summed up 
the foregoing facts, says editorially (August 29, 
1914): 

"When in a chemical experiment certain mole- 
cules by a natural attraction combine, that fact shows 
that they have something in common. When, in such 
a war as this, France, England, Belgium, Portugal, 
Japan and Russia combine, that fact shows that these 
various peoples have something in common. We 
believe that something in common is a passionate 
desire for democratic liberty. 

"The victory of Germany can be no other than 
a victory for militarism; the victory of the Allies 
no other than a victory for permanent peace. If Ger- 
many wins she must maintain her armaments, if not 
increase them; for power obtained by force can be 
maintained only by force. If Germany is defeated, a 
diminution of her armaments as a condition of peace 
may well be demanded by the Allied Powers." 



VI 

In addition to the evidence already presented as 
to the mental attitude of the average German toward 
his own race and toward other European races, are 
there any facts tending to show his real attitude 
tozuard America f 

A. If in answering this I come back again to 
Bernhardi and Treitschke, it is because I believe it has 
been shown that, in spite of eleventh-hour denials, they 
truly represent the Germany of 1914 — the Germany 
of this war. How much of the mistaken "devotion" 
of the German nation at this time is due to their teach- 
ings and to those of their class it is impossible to state 
dogmatically. But that they have greatly influenced 
their compatriots there can be no doubt. 

Let us see what these "Pan Germanists" have to 
say to their fellow-countrymen about America. Bern- 
hardi says (16) that in our efforts at The Hague Con- 
gresses and, in recent times, our attempts to conclude 
treaties for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, 
we have not pacific ideals as the real motive of our 
actions, but "usually employ the need of peace as a 
cloak under which to promote" our own political aims. 
He goes on : 

"We can hardly assume that a real love of peace 
prompts these efforts. This is shown by the fact that 
precisely those Powers which, as the weaker, are ex- 

(60) 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 61 

posed to aggression, and therefore were in the greatest 
need of international protection, have been completely 
passed over in the American proposals for Arbitration 
Courts. It must consequently be assumed that very 
matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans, 
with their commercial instincts, to take such steps, 
and induced perfidious Albion to accede to the pro- 
posals. We may suppose that England intended to 
protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, 
but that America wished to have a free hand in order 
to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America 
without hindrance, and to carry out her plans regard- 
ing the Panama Canal in the exclusive interests of 
America. Both countries certainly entertained the 
hope of gaining advantage over the other signatory 
of the treaty, and of winning the lion's share for them- 
selves. Theorists and fanatics imagine that they see 
in the efforts of President Taft a great step forward 
on the path to perpetual peace, and enthusiastically 
agree with him. Even the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs in England, with well-affected idealism, termed 
the procedure of the United States an era in the his- 
tory of mankind." 

"The United States of America, e. g., in June, 
1911, championed the ideas of universal peace in order 
to be able to detote their undisturbed attention to 
money-making and the enjoyment of wealth, and to 
save the three hundred million dollars which they 
spend on their army and navy." 

"In America, Elihu Root, formerly Secretary of 
State, declared in 1908 that the High Court of Inter- 
national Justice established by the second Hague Con- 
ference would be able to pronounce definite and bind- 



62 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

ing decisions by virtue of the pressure brought to bear 
by public opinion. The present leaders of the Ameri- 
can peace movement seem to share this idea. . With 
a childlike self-consciousness, they appear to believe 
that public opinion must represent the view which the 
American plutocrats think most profitable to them- 
selves." 

"While, on the one side, she [America], insists 
on the Monroe doctrine, on the other she stretches 
out her own arms towards Asia and Africa, in order 
to find bases for her fleets. The United States aim 
at the economic and, where possible, the political com- 
mand of the American continent, and at naval su- 
premacy in the Pacific." 

So much for Bernhardi. 
Treitschke says: (17) 

"To civilization at large, the Anglicising of the 
German-Americans means a heavy loss. . . . 
Among Germans there can no longer be any question 
that the civilization of mankind {Gesittung der Men- 
scheit) suffers every time a German is transformed 
into a Yankee." 



No wonder that the Ridders and Miinsterbergs 
and Hilprechts and Jastrows seek to belittle Bernhardi 
and Treitschke and their teachings as a preliminary to 
the conciliation of America, But I fear that the trans- 
formation of the representative of "Kultur" into the 
despised Yankee takes place much less frequently than 
we had supposed. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 63 

The reason it does not take place oftener is not 
far to seek, once one recognizes that our German- 
Americans are still under the influence of the "Father- 
land." 

There can be no doubt that German and Ameri- 
can political ideals are absolutely divergent. They 
have already come into conflict over South America, 
the Panama Canal and the Philippines. Calwer, a 
German socialist, says that preliminary to a socialistic 
economic organization of the world, "Capitalism must 
first bring the world under subjection," and adds : 

"It follows that capital — including German cap- 
ital as well — ^rnust first go forth and subdue the world 
with the means and weapons which are at its dis- 
posal," i.e., with fire and sword. 



The same sort of thing crops out wherever their 
bureaucrats write. Herr Schlettewein, a Government 
Colonist expert, when asked to instruct the Reichstag 
on the principles of colonization, said : 

"In colonial politics we stand at the parting of 
the ways— on the one side healthy egoism . . . 
on the other exaggerated humanitarianism. The 
Herreros must he compelled to work, and to work 
without compensation and in return for their food 
only. Forced labor for years is only a just punish- 
ment, and at the same time it is the best method of 
training them." 



64 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

How long would an American governmental em- 
ploye remain in public life after expressing that senti- 
ment to Congress ? 

Curiously enough the fundamental idea of our 
American republic, the idea for which the War of the 
Revolution was fought, the idea for the preservation 
of which to-day Americans would unhesitatingly lay 
down their lives, is known to political philosophers and 
historians as "the Teutonic idea." 

It is the irreconcilable conflict between that idea 
and the mediaeval ideas of a people willing to be gov- 
erned by a Hohenzollern that prevents the more fre- 
quent metamorphosis of a German into a "Yankee." 

Professor McElroy has shown (18)' that the 
"Teutonic idea" — the idea of representative govern- 
ment — dating back to the earliest days of European 
history, gradually overwhelmed on the Continent by 
the Roman idea (of government from above), except 
in the highlands of Switzerland and the lowlands of 
Holland, survived in the British Isles. It was kept 
alive at Runnymede, and by Simon de Montfort's par- 
liament and against it, he says, "The despotic Tudors, 
the treacherous Stuarts and the dull Hanoverians 
struggled in vain." 

It throve in the American Colonies and the 
American Revolution started it upon a new and glori- 
ous career. Almost at once the representative idea 
was restored in England, and in France emerged, 
"after centuries of complete obliteration, in a revolu- 
tionary movement that shook Europe from end to 
end." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 65 
Professor McElroy continues: 

"It has since spread rapidly. Wherever the 
British flag has appeared the Teutonic idea has been 
planted and its roots carefully nourished. It is a 
plant of slow growth ; but it is worth the trouble of 
careful cultivation. No man can deny the fact that, 
with all the faults of administration, and they are 
many and grave, often written in letters of blood, the 
flag of England and that of her own flesh and blood, 
the United States, have been followed always by the 
idea and practice of representative government. We 
may criticise the Boer war ; but we know that as soon 
as the Boers were subdued they were told to govern 
themselves. Men may question the propriety of 
American intervention in Cuba; but no one can deny 
that we voluntarily stood aside, after gaining full 
possession of the island, and invited her people to 
select representatives and manage their own affairs. 
In the elaboration of this idea one need not argue; one 
need only invite attention to the facts which are patent 
to all men. Whatever we may think of England, 
therefore, we know that the great Germanic idea of 
government 'of the people, by the people, and for the 
people' follows her flag. 

"But what of Germany under the hegemony of 
Prussia? Prussia has been throughout her history, 
as her greatest publicist. Professor Hans Delbriick, 
has phrased it, a Kriegsstaat. Her history is all mil- 
itary history. In reading it we miss the story of the 
glorious conflicts for the people's right to a share in 
the government. There are no Runnymede barons, 
no Simon de Montforts, no Oliver Cromwells, no 
Abraham Lincolns, in the history of Prussia. Slowly, 



66 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

but with a grim and terrible certainty, the iron hand 
of the Prussian war lord has brought the German 
nation to exactly the position to which King George 
III attempted to bring England and the American 
colonies. In Germany the Teutonic idea is dead. A 
mixed race, more Slavonic than Teutonic, the Prus- 
sian, has deprived the German people of their birth- 
right. There, as Professor Cramb strikingly phrases 
it, 'Corsica . . . has conquered Galilee.' The 
ideals of Prussia remain to-day just what they were 
in the days of the Great Elector — ideals of absolute 
monarchy — and the German Empire has accepted 
them. 'The German people,' wrote Charles Sarolea 
in 1912, 'are governed more completely from Berlin 
and Potsdam than the French were governed from 
Paris and Versailles. In theory, every part of the 
Empire may have a proportional share in the admin- 
istration of the country; in reality, Prussia has the 
ultimate political and financial control.' And it is to 
maintain and extend this half-Slavonic military des- 
potism calling its war chief the 'anointed of the Lord' 
that the Germans are giving their lives." 



VII 

What is the attitude of German-Americans to- 
ward this war and toward the principles involved t 

This has been and is one of the great surprises 
of the war to most Americans. It is unnecessary to 
say that we value our German-American citizens, 
and thought that in times of stress in the future, as in 
the past, they would demonstrate that they were as 
democratic and as truly American as any of us. It 
was quite common to hear the expression from Ameri- 
cans that this was a "Prussian war," a "Kaiser's 
war," a "War Lord's fight," and that the "German 
people" had our sympathies, though we hoped Ger- 
many would lose. In Mr. Fraley's brochure, already 
quoted from, he says eloquently: 

"Oh, Great People of South and Middle Ger- 
many; brave, kindly, lovers of the peaceful arts, 
lovers of liberty; you, who as you march, are singing 
of homes in Schwabenland and Bayerland, and where 
the grape blooms on the Rhine; how long will you 
sacrifice not only your blood and treasure, but your 
sacred honor, to uphold this spirit of inexorable mil- 
itarism, foisted upon you under the pretense that 
through it your dear Fatherland may be at rest, but 
whose real purpose is that a Prussian shall write him- 
self Imperator et Rex?" 

(67) 



68 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

If we thought this of portions of the German na- 
tion itself, it may be understood how much more con- 
fident we were as to the sentiments of the Germans 
who had become part of our own family. But we were 
soon to be undeceived. 

At the present moment the American people 
might with some show of accuracy be divided into 
Americans and a subdivision of what the newspapers 
call "Hyphenated-Americans." 

This subdivision seems to consist chiefly, if not 
entirely, of a certain number of Teutonic accessions 
to our citizenship — i. e., of "German-Americans." 
What numerical relation it has to the whole body of 
useful and valued American citizens of German birth 
or ancestry it is just now impossible to determine. 
The classification I suggest would rest upon three 
chief characteristics: 1. A pronounced tendency to 
unfriendly or contemptuous criticism of the United 
States. 2. Undiscriminating sympathy with and sup- 
port of the actions of Germany before and during the 
present war. 3. An effort to arouse anti-British 
prejudice among Americans. 

The so-called German- Americans who do not be- 
long in the group thus defined may be in the large 
majority. I hope they are. But thus far they have 
scarcely been heard from, while the others are almost 
daily appealing to Americans for intellectual and 
moral aid and countenance. That their appeals are 
often tactless, frequently untruthful, and sometimes 
insulting, is an interesting phenomenon which is de- 
serving of study. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 69 

In a biological investigation certain factors would 
be at once considered if the cause of a particular racial 
or tribal peculiarity were being sought for. Chief 
among these factors would be heredity and environ- 
ment, the latter including the customary diet with the 
sources of food supply. This would be true whether 
the peculiarity were physical or psychical — i. e., 
whether it was, for example, a matter of stature and 
complexion or a matter of belief and religious observ- 
ance. Similarly, the food that may have helped to 
produce it would be of interest to the investigator, 
whether it were for the body or for the mind — e. g., 
whether clay-eating causing the swollen belly of the 
Digger or Chauvinistic literature causing — to use the 
vernacular — the swollen head of the "world power or 
perish" German. 

Viewed from this standpoint the phenomenon in 
question seems to admit of easy explanation. The in- 
fluence of heredity is, of course, obvious and unmis- 
takable. Thus far the overwhelming majority of the 
apologists — little or big — for Germany in this country 
are of German birth or descent. It is rare to find an 
American name prefixed or appended to an article or 
communication calling for the sympathy of Americans 
for Germany in this crisis, or asking them to "suspend 
judgment," or appealing for "fairness and modera- 
tion," or extolling the bravery, the self-sacrifice and 
the high moral purposes of the Germans; or even 
narrating the extreme consideration shown them in 
Germany after the outbreak of the war. 



70 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

Coupled with their articles is not uncommonly 
abuse of American methods, attempts to show that we 
have ourselves been guilty of crimes no less abhorrent 
than those with which Germany is charged, assertions 
that our indignation is hypocrisy and that the over- 
whelming anti-German sentiment of the country is due 
to lying newspapers influencing a hysterical populace. 

One "German-American" journalistic "concili- 
ator" who seems to be especially charged with the duty 
of combating and modifying the prevailing deep and 
spontaneous sympathy for the Allies actually at- 
tributes the public expressions of this sympathy to our 
hypocrisy and untruthfulness. 

This would be inexplicable if it were not for cer- 
tain facts that throw upon it an illuminating sidelight. 

We have already seen the attitude of many Ger- 
man writers toward this country. It is obvious that 
they have been supplying not only to Germans, but 
also to German- Americans, the mental pabulum which 
has nourished in the latter the combined sentiment of 
worship of militarism and dislike for the ideals of the 
country of their adoption. This seems extravagant, 
and it is certainly surprising that such a statement 
could have even a slight basis of truth. But listen to 
Miinsterberg: (19) "In the German view the State 
is not for the individuals, but the individuals for the 
State." 

And again : 

"Those men who have achieved the marvelous 
progress of German civilization have done it in the 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 71 

conviction that the military spirit is a splendid train- 
ing for cultural efficiency. The university professors 
have always been the most enthusiastic defenders of 
the system. ... 

"Germany is not understood by those who fancy 
that defeat would tear an abyss between the people 
and the emperor. There is no room in Germany for 
a president. The idea of a president is that he draws 
his power from the will of the millions of individuals. 
The idea of the emperor is that he is the symbol of the 
State as a whole, independent from the will of the in- 
dividuals, and therefore independent of any elections. 
In the symbol of the crown, far above the struggles of 
partisan individuals, lies the idea of the German 
nation." 

Here are some more quotations from "German- 
Americans": (20) 

"The overwhelming majority of the Germans 
give their heartiest support to their far-seeing and 
wise monarch." 

"Modern Germany with all her great achieve- 
ments is inseparable from the Germany of military 
discipline, and would never have come into existence 
without the support of a strong, steadfast and deter- 
mined government. The 'two Germanys' must stand 
or fall together, for the German people and their 
Kaiser are one !" 

"The German people are as inseparable from 
their Kaiser as we in America are from our Constitu- 
tion." 

"The whole German people are practically unani- 
mous in the opinion that the monarchical form of 



72 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

government, with great authority and strongly cen- 
tralized, is the best for them. Even the great Social 
Democratic party is organized upon this principle, 
and does not in the least resemble a Democratic party 
in the American sense of the word." 



The Kolnische Zeitung (21) publishes a letter 
from a German — or German-American — resident in 
this country, as to the events immediately following 
the outbreak of the war : 

"These were glorious days ! . . . A holy 
wrath breaks over us, the furor teutonicus. All Ger- 
many flames up like a powder-mine. . , , Who is 
not for us is against us. And they were all, all against 
us, America the most furious. Search history as you 
will, you will not find a page that records the like of 
what appears in these days in the American press. 
They write with Indian arrowheads and for ink use 
viper's venom. Has ever one member of the family 
of nations ventured to employ against another such a 
mode of speech, especially when that other was 
locked in a most sanguinary strife? 

"And America is a neutral State ! . . . 
Americans, with left-handed meaning, speak of the 
Kaiser as 'the War Lord.' And for the honest 
Yankee there is no more ghastly title than this. For 
it sounds better to play the peace waltz ! On all the 
editorial organs they play now only one melody : Ger- 
many is the world's champion peace-buster {Aller- 
weltsstorenfried) , and when peace is broken the free- 
dom of the people is beaten into fragments. . . . 
A land, a people, a nation, is the prey of the Amer- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 73 

ican vultures of the press. For these conveyers of 
culture there is no such thing as honor of country, 
people, or nation." 

Price Collier throws some light on the matter as 
regards the German Germans when he says: (22) 

"In order to build up his patriotism the German 
has been taught systematically to dislike the Aus- 
trians, then the French, now the English, and let not 
the American suppose that he likes the American any 
better, for he does not." 

Pere Didon also helps when he writes: (23) 

"J'ai essaye maintes fois de decouvrir chez I'alle- 
mand une sympathie quelconque pour d'autres 
nations; je n'y ai reussi." 

But the most illuminating comment is m^de in 
another portion of Collier's book, where he sums up 
his views as to the entire Germanic system : 

"There is no such thing in Germany as democratic 
or representative government. 

"The orderliness of the Germans is all forced 
upon them from without, and is not due to their own 
knowledge of how to take care of themselves. 

"German State socialism is, in a nutshell, the de- 
cision on the part of the rulers that the individual is 
not competent to spend his own money, choose his 
own calling, use his own time as he will or provide 
for his own future or the various emergencies of life. 



74 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

By minute State control they are rapidly bringing the 
whole population to an enfeebled social and political 
condition, where they can do nothing for them- 
selves. . . . There are 3,000,000 officials, great 
and small, in Germany, and 14,000,000 electors, or, 
roughly, one policeman to every five adults. 

"I have said that the population is well fed, well 
clothed and well looked after. Of course they are. 
No slave owner so maltreats his slaves that they can- 
not work for him. But is man fed by bread alone? 

. . . "The electors, now so flattered by the 
smooth phrases of their tyrants disguised as liberators, 
will one day be aghast to find themselves in a veritable 
house of correction paid for from their own savings. 

"The very barrenness of the soil, the ring of 
enemies, the soft moral and social texture of the 
population, have, so their little knot of rulers think, 
made necessary these harsh, artificial forcing methods. 
The outstanding proof of the artificiality of this civil- 
ization is its powerlessness to propagate. Germans 
transplanted from their hothouse civilization to other 
countries cease to be Germans; and nowhere in the 
world outside Germany is German civilization im- 
itated, liked or adopted. 

"Autocracy, bureaucracy and militarism are trip- 
lets of straw, not destined to live. They are preco- 
cious children, teaching the pallid religion of depen- 
dence upon the State and enforcing the anarchical 
morality of man's despair of himself. 

"Germany has organized herself into an organiza- 
tion, and is the most overgoverned country in the 
world. Life is to live, not to think, after all. This is 
where the metaphysician invariably fails when he mis- 
takes thinking for living, when he mistakes organiza- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 75 

tion, which can never be more than a mold for hfe, 
for Hfe itself. 

"Germany has shown us that the short cut to the 
government of a people by suppression and strangula- 
tion results in a dreary development of mediocrity. 
She has proved again that the only safety for either an 
individual or a nation is to be loved and respected; 
and in these days no one respects slavery or loves 
threats." 

Another American writer, after making this quo- 
tation, adds: (24) 

"Such is the true meaning of the system which 
has produced the modern Germany of machine-like 
efficiency, of a governmental philosophy founded upon 
force, of universal submission to undemocratic ideals. 
It is a picture to sadden all admirers of the race which 
has wrought such benefits to mankind. 

"Yet this is the system which patriotic Germans 
in America insist is necessary. The fruits of German 
energy and genius, they say, are due not to racial ca- 
pacity, but to the crushing out of individualism and 
the surrender of national liberty to the purpose of 
creating a glorified State. 

"In plain terms, they declare the astonishing 
theory that the German people are incapable of prog- 
ress under democratic institutions, but have become 
great in the mass only because they have subordinated 
the nation's will to an intelligent officialdom and 
ordered their lives to the commands of a militaristic 
discipline." 

Among other unamiable peculiarities our Ger- 
man-American citizens have developed is one already 



76 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

alluded to, a determined effort to arouse anti-British 
feeling by reference to all the occasions when there 
has been war or dispute between the two countries 
from the time of the Revolution down to the Vene- 
zuelan incident. 

But this is as clumsy, as ineffective and, I think, 
as distasteful to most Americans as their equally un- 
couth attempts at flattery. 

They forget that America has never been the 
home of "grudges"; that every important incident 
they cite, even the most recent, belongs to the period 
of generations that have passed away. They forget 
that the greatest war of the last century, between two 
sections of our own country, has been, so far as con- 
tinued rancor and bitterness are concerned, as com- 
pletely forgotten as if it had occurred in the time of 
the Crusades. They forget that the ideals of the Eng- 
lish-speaking people the world over are at once the 
most democratic and the nearest to successful realiza- 
tion that the world has ever seen, and that our brothers 
in the French Republic have their faces steadfastly set 
toward the same goal. 

They forget that our present differences — if there 
are any — are trivial and superficial, while our like- 
nesses are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. 

They ignore the fact that the fairest and most 
penetrating analysis of our country, our methods and 
our people ever written was from the pen of an Eng- 
lishman, Viscount Bryce; and that the most sympa- 
thetic and impartial story of our War of Independence 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 77 

was told by an English historian, Sir George Trev- 
elyan. They are stupid enough to forget the incident 
in Manila Bay in 1898, when the German Admiral 
Von Diederich, after a series of petty and provocative 
infractions of the blockade established by Admiral 
Dewey, approached Admiral Chichester, in command 
of the British fleet, to learn what he would do if fur- 
ther disregard of Dewey's orders were shown. But 
the American people have not forgotten Admiral Chi- 
chester's reply to the effect that he "would do what- 
ever Dewey wanted him to do." 

Nor have they forgotten that at that very time 
Germany was endeavoring to bring about an "under- 
standing" among European powers that would result 
in interference on behalf of Spain. 

Our German-American quarrel makers do not 
know doubtless, but many of us know, that in the 
"Strangers' Room," of the chief Liberal Club of Lon- 
don, a room where all visitors are shown, there hangs 
in the place of honor over the mantel a framed fac- 
simile of our Declaration of Independence, while above 
it is a medallion with the superimposed silhouettes in 
low relief, of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. In the 
same room the Magna Charta occupies a less conspicu- 
ous position. 

Fortunately, they are about as likely to disturb or 
even to affect the relations between England and this 
country as their "Fatherland" is to realize its insane 
dream of "World Power." 

They are circulating the speeches of some unim- 



78 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

portant irreconcilables like Ramsay McDonald in op- 
position to the war. Why don't they quote the 
communications of the German Humanity League of 
Berlin, to the British Humanity League, in which the 
Kaiser is characterized as "the uncurbed tyrant, sur- 
rounded by parasites, and now directing the most des- 
perate, devilish and selfish campaign ever waged 
against humanity," and as "the despot whose in- 
satiable egotism is drenching Europe with the blood 
of its workers and wage earners?" (25) 

Perhaps Miinsterberg's book, "The War and Amer- 
ica," best illustrates the fatuity of the German-Ameri- 
can apologists as well as their awkward and stupid 
mixture of unpalatable flattery and unfriendly 
criticism. 

The book has been admirably dissected by a re- 
cent reviewer. (26). Professor Miinsterberg has re- 
ceived so much undeserved attention from our Ameri- 
can journalists that it seems worth while to quote por- 
tions of this review. 

"His method of argument seems directed at a 
singularly untrained public. . . . His major pre- 
mises he never takes the pains to substantiate. In- 
stead, he reiterates them as axiomatic. 'Culturally, 
Russia is Asia,' Russia desires to blot out Western 
European civilization, hence Germany is fighting for 
civilization against barbarism, in an inevitable con- 
flict. These fundamental notions are drummed in with 
Prussian thoroughness. But these are just the postu- 
lates that a thoughtful reader wants to have proved. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 79 

. . . Aside from bandying big impressive antith- 
eses — Teuton and Slav, Europe, Asia, etc. — Professor 
Miinsterberg varies his tactics by condescending flat- 
tery of America; and by occasional excursions in 
pure sentiment. The whole melange is highly sea- 
soned, and possibly grateful to the literary palate of 
the very simple reader for whom it is concocted. 

"The omniscient tone of the plea is characteristic. 
. . . Such a generalization as that Europe means 
thought while Asia means feeling, and accordingly one 
must cut the other's throat, is admirably calculated to 
solve the vexed problem of West and East — in any 
corner grocery store. And for whom does Professor 
Miinsterberg limn the picture of an idyllic, scholarly, 
industrial, unaggressive, and wholly pacific Germany 
reluctantly kept under arms by bellicose neighbors? 
Plainly, for a reader who has not heard of the parti- 
tion of Poland, the seizing of Silesia, the grasping of 
Schleswig-Holstein, the annexation of Hanover, the 
retention of Alsace and Lorraine, and, only yesterday, 
the premature incorporation of Belgium into the Ger- 
man Empire. 

"Then what kind of a reader is asked to swallow 
whole the theory of a ruthlessly aggressive Russia 
menacing all Western Europe? Evidently, a reader 
who does not know that, first, Russia set conquered 
Germany on her feet, then Austria threatened by the 
Hungarian revolution — a reader who does not know 
that in a hundred and fifty years, when Russia was 
strong and Central Europe a congeries of weak states, 
Russia showed no exceptional aggressiveness against 
European Powers. 

. . . "We must note the kind of philosophical 
thought that underlies the surface rhetoric. It is a 
philosophy not overtly expressed. It would hardly 



80 A IV AR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

bear ventilation in America. You may sense it in the 
sharp distinction between 'routine agreements like the 
neutrality treaties,' and a 'pledge of international 
honor' like the Triple Alliance. Why is there no 
pledge of honor in a neutrality agreement? Plainly 
because it is made with and in behalf of a weak 
Power. Honor first begins among peers. Thus is 
honor made in the Germany of Zabern. 

"Again consider the system of international 
morals implied in the following: 

" 'It was the ethical duty of the Russians to strain 
every effort for the expansion of their influence, and 
it was the ethical duty of the Germans and Austrians 
to strain every effort to prevent it. In the same way, 
it was the moral right of France to make use of any 
hour of German embarrassment for recapturing its 
military glory by a victory of revenge. And it was 
the moral right of England to exert its energies for 
keeping the control of the seas and for destroying the 
commercial rivalry of the Germans. No one is to be 
blamed.' 

"International morality, that is, consists in the 
insensate inevitable clash of national egotisms, which, 
being national, are holy. . . . 

"We have left dangling the very interesting ques- 
tion : For what kind of a reader is this skillful blend 
of dogmatism, innuendo, sophistry, and gush in- 
tended? Fortunately, Profesor Miinsterberg has 
the candor to make the matter clear. It is addressed 
to 'the American mind' which has an 'unusual degree 
of imitativeness and suggestibility.' It is addressed 
to the individual American who, when excited, tends 
to become *a mere automatic mechanism in which the 
thoughts and feelings and impulses of his neighbor 
control his mind.' . . . 'There is a lack of indi- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 81 

vidual resistance to prescribed opinions which pro- 
duces in excited states a colorless wholesale judgment 
which may be entirely different from the natural stand 
of the sober single individual.' Elsewhere we learn 
that in all European matters the American is moved 
chiefly by a provincial prejudice against the parapher- 
nalia and nomenclature of monarchy. He takes mere 
names for real things. 

"Professor Miinsterberg has produced a book that 
is precisely adapted to impress the sort of 'American 
mind,' he thus defines, but no other sort." 

Even in his latest text-book of Psychology he 
evinces the same insufferable belief in essential racial 
superiority, saying (p. 234) : 

"The Southern peoples are children of the mo- 
ment ; the Teutonic live in the things which lie beyond 
the world, in the infinite and the ineffable." 

I still, however, cling to the hope that the sup- 
port at present undoubtedly given to the German cause 
by our German-American citizens is a temporary 
manifestation of the strength of the ties of blood, and 
that they as a class are not fitly represented by 
their present spokesmen. I cannot believe that, how- 
ever they may have been influenced by heredity, by 
the poisonous teachings of the Bernhardis and Treit- 
schkes and by the flamboyant but spurious patriotism 
of the Miinsterbergs and Ridders and Hilprechts, they 
will permanently espouse a cause which is based upon 
the idea that "there is no room in Germany for a presi- 



82 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

dent" for the reason that "the idea of a president is 
that he draws his power from the will of millions of 
individuals." It must be impossible that the kindly, 
sociable and lovable friends I have among the Ger- 
mans, here and abroad, can subscribe to the ethics of 
the Kaiser as expressed to the German soldiers 
despatched to China in 1900 : 

"When you meet the foe you will defeat him. 
No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. 
Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. 
Just as the Huns, a thousand years ago, under the 
leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a reputation, in 
virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, 
so may the name of Germany become known in such a 
manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again 
even dare to look askance at a German." (27) 

The reference to Attila was commonly sup- 
pressed, but the rest of the quotation was circulated 
on postcards throughout Germany. (28) 

Two days later the modern Attila preached a ser- 
mon on board the Hohensollern! (29) 

I may, of course, be mistaken, but until the mis- 
take is demonstrated I do not intend to include in my 
condemnation of the present "German-American" at- 
titude any but those who have publicly put themselves 
on record. As for them, they should abandon the pre- 
tense of being even "hyphenated" Americans. 



VIII 

How much reliance is to be placed upon state- 
ments emanating from Germany at this time? 

We have been deluged with complaints of the 
"unfairness" with which Germany's case has been pre- 
sented to the world, the "lies" that have been told 
about her, the "double facedness" of many of our 
newspapers. Even the German Chancellor — the same 
chancellor who on July 28th was, according to Mr. 
Beck, guilty of a "pitiful and insincere quibble," and 
whose Secretary of State on July 29th he says told 
a "stupid falsehood" — on September 2d, by authority 
of the Emperor, took the trouble to convey to the 
American people his confidence that it would not 
"allow itself to be deceived through the war of false- 
hood which our enemies are conducting against us." 

We know what to think of the Chancellor's ver- 
acity. The small fry — the Miinsterbergs and Hil- 
prechts — are shrill in their clamorous accusations of 
unfairness and mendacity, including all their op- 
ponents and some of us. Dr. Hilprecht, Heaven save 
the mark, calls Sir Edward Grey an "arch deceiver," 
and accuses (30) 

"all our four principal enemies, against whom thus 
far battles have been fought — the Belgians, the Eng- 
lish, the French and the Russians — government, sol- 

(83) 



84 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

diers and population alike, of having wilfully, cow- 
ardly and cruelly, broken the sacred pledges given by 
their representatives at The Hague conference before 
God and mankind." 

In support of one part of this statement, he says : 

"The British dum-dum cartridges taken from the 
first original package, opened in the presence of the 
war correspondents, show the inscription, 'Art. Dept. 
Ive.' at the bottom of their brass casings." 

An archaeologist should, of course, be an authority 
as to "inscriptions," but we need not regard this evi- 
dence as conclusive. 

Fortunately, we have a better test of Germany's 
reliability as to truth at this juncture than could be 
afforded by either Chancellors or archaeologists. 

Perhaps the most astonishing effort to influence 
American opinion is the 73-page pamphlet entitled 
'Truth About Germany : Facts About the War." If 
it had been headed "Falsehoods About Germany: 
Lies About the War" the title would have been more 
accurately descriptive. Professor Lovejoy, of Johns 
Hopkins, has fitly characterized it as "a clumsy com- 
pilation of fictions, irrelevancies and vulgar appeals to 
what are apparently conceived to be American preju- 
dices." He specifies some of the direct falsehoods: 

"1. The pamphlet (31) says that Austria-Hun- 
gary was able to prove that the Servian government 
had been responsible for the plan of the assassination 
at Sarajevo. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 85 

"2. Austria-Hungary addressed to the Servian 
government a number of demands which aimed at 
nothing but the suppression of the anti-Austrian 
propaganda. Servia was on the point of accepting 
the demand, when there arrived a dispatch from St. 
Petersburg, and Servia mobihzed. Then Austria had 
to act. Thus arose the Austro-Servian war." 

3. "Great Britain asked that Germany should 
allow French and Belgian troops to form on Belgian 
territory for a march against our frontier 
England and France were resolved not to respect the 
neutrality of Belgium . . . (They) did not give 
up their plan of attacking Germany through Bel- 
gium." 

4. "England aims at being mistress of the Old 
World in order to occupy either an equal, or a menac- 
ing, position towards the New World. For this pur- 
pose she has encouraged this war." 

Prof essor Lovejoy adds : (32) 

"Every American recipient of the pamphlet who 
subsequently took the trouble to examine the entire 
published evidence in the case must have speedily 
discovered the statements of specific historical fact in 
the passages cited to be either direct falsehoods or 
suggestiones falsi. But it should be added that the 
publication in question is marked by a yet more sin- 
gular suppressio veri; it contains no hint of what are 
perhaps the two most decisive of the 'facts about the 
war.' These, since they seem to have been less em- 
phasized in America than they deserve to be, should 
perhaps be indicated specifically. 

It is a fact undisclosed in the pamphlet that on 



86 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

July 30, and again in a modified form on July 31, 
the Russian government communicated to the Ger- 
man government an undertaking to 'stop all military 
preparations' (or 'to maintain a waiting attitude') if 
Austria would consent to 'stay the march of her 
troops on Servian territory and, recognizing that the 
Austro-Servian conflict has assumed the character of 
a question of general European interest, to admit that 
the Great Powers may examine the satisfaction which 
Servia can accord to the Austro-Hungarian govern- 
ment without injury to her rights as a sovereign state 
and to her independence.' 

"It is a fact equally undisclosed in this repository 
of information about the causes of the war, that on 
the morning of July 31, Sir Edward Grey declared 
to the German Ambassador in London that 'if Ger- 
many could get any reasonable proposal put forward 
which made it clear that Germany and Austria were 
striving to preserve European peace, and that Russia 
and France would be unreasonable if they rejected it,' 
he would 'support it at St. Petersburg and Paris, and 
go the length of saying that if Russia and France 
would not accept it his Majesty's government would 
have nothing more to do with the consequences.' 

"The most illuminating 'truth about Germany' 
is that, on the same day, with these two pledges be- 
fore it, the government at Berlin sent to Russia and 
to France ultimata which were certain, and therefore 
were manifestly designed, to render war within twen- 
ty-four hours inevitable." 

The pamphlet "Truth About Germany" was pre- 
pared by a Board of Editors which included many of 
the best-known men in letters, science, finance and Ger- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 87 

man public life. As Lovejoy says, the pamphlet seems 
to show that the very class that among cultivated per- 
sons of other countries has gained for Germany its 
greatest distinction, 

"has signally failed at the most critical moment in 
German history, to perform its proper function — the 
function of detached criticism, of cool consideration, 
of insisting that facts and all the relevant facts, be 
known and faced. It appears to be shouting with 
the rest for a wholly avoidable war of which, in 
nearly all non-German eyes, the moral indefensibil- 
ity seems exceeded only by its fatal unwisdom from a 
purely national point of view." 

It does not seem worth while to consider further 
the question of the credibility of recent German offi- 
cial and semi-official statements. 



IX 

What is the truth as to the "pre-eminence" of 
German ''Kultur," of German civilisation, of German 
achievement in letters, arts and sciences? 

A. "Truth About Germany" was in itself suffi- 
cient, considering the representative character of its 
authors and editors, to raise grave doubts as to the 
value of German "cuhure" unless one could be both 
cultured and untruthful. But much broader views of 
this subject have been taken by Professor Brander 
Matthews (33) and by Professor Ramsay: 

After expressing his surprise that scholars like 
Eucken and Haeckel should be possessed of the convic- 
tion that Germany is the supreme example of a highly 
civilized state, and the undisputed leader in the arts 
and sciences which represent culture, Professor Mat- 
thews continues by pointing out that 

"Certain things seem to show German 'culture' a 
little lacking in the social instinct, the desire to make 
things easy and pleasant for others, an instinct which 
is the dominating influence in French civilization. 
. . . It is to the absence of this social instinct, to 
the inability to understand the attitude of other parties 
to a discussion, to the unwillingness to appreciate their 
point of view, that we may ascribe the failure of Ger- 
man diplomacy, a failure which has left her almost 
without a friend in her hour of need. And success in 
diplomacy is one of the supreme tests of civilization. 

(88) 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 89 

"The claim asserted explicitly or implicitly in be- 
half of German culture seems to be based on the be- 
lief that the Germans are leaders in the arts and in 
the sciences. So far as the art of war . . . and 
so far as the art of music are concerned, there is no 
need to cavil. 

"But what about the other and more purely intel- 
lectual arts? How many are the contemporary 
painters and sculptors and architects of Germany who 
have succeeded in winning the cosmopolitan reputa- 
tion which has been the reward of a score of the 
artists of France and of half a dozen of the artists of 
America ? 

"When we consider the art of letters we find a 
similar condition. Germany has had philosophers 
and historians of high rank; but in pure literature 
. . . for a period of nearly sixty years — only one 
German author succeeded in winning a world-wide 
celebrity — and Heine was a Hebrew, who died in 
Paris, out of favor with his countrymen, perhaps be- 
cause he had been unceasing in calling attention to 
the deficiencies of German culture. . . . No 
German writer attained to the international fame 
achieved by Cooper and by Poe, by Walt Whitman 
and by Mark Twain. And it was during these three- 
score years of literary aridity in Germany that there 
was a superb literary fecundity in Great Britain and 
in France, and that each of these countries produced 
at least a score of authors whose names are known 
throughout the world. Even sparsely settled Scan- 
dinavia brought forth a triumvirate, Bjorsen, Ibsen 
and Brandes, without compeers in Germany. And 
from Russia the fame of Turgenef and of Tolstoy 
spread abroad a knowledge of the heart and mind 



90 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

of a great people who are denounced by Germans as 
barbarous." 



As Heine is the one German who has been pre- 
eminent in Hterature these many years, it is interest- 
ing, in view of recent happenings, to recall what he 
wrote seventy-eight years ago : 

"Christianity — and this is its highest merit — has, 
in some degree, softened, but it could not destroy, 
that brutal German joy of battle. When once the 
taming talisman, the Cross, breaks in two, the sav- 
agery of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker fury 
of which the northern poets sing and say so much, 
will gush up anew. That talisman is decayed, and the 
day will come when it will piteously collapse. Then 
the old stone gods will rise from the silent ruins, and 
rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes. 
Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at last spring up, 
and shatter to bits the Gothic cathedrals." ! ! 

Professor Matthews thinks that in the field of 
science, pure and applied, the defenders of the suprem- 
acy of German culture will probably take their last 
stand. He goes on : 

"That the German contribution to science has 
been important is indisputable; yet it is equally in- 
disputable that the two dominating scientific leaders 
of the second half of the nineteenth century are Dar- 
win and Pasteur. It is in chemistry that the Germans 
have been pioneers ; yet the greatest of modern chem- 
ists is Mendeleef. It was Hertz who made the dis- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 91 

covery which is the foundation of Marconi's inven- 
tion ; but although not a few valuable discoveries are 
to be credited to the Germans, perhaps almost as 
many as to either the French or the British, the Ger- 
man contribution in the field of invention, in the 
practical application of scientific discovery, has been 
less than that of France, less than that of Great Brit- 
ain, and less than that of the United States. The 
Germans contributed little or nothing to the develop- 
ment of the railroad, the steamboat, the automobile, 
the aeroplane, the telegraph, the telephone, the phono- 
graph, the photograph, the moving picture, the elec- 
tric light, the sewing machine, and the reaper and 
binder. Even those dread instruments of war, the 
revolver and the machine gun, the turreted ship, the 
torpedo, and the submarine, are not due to the mili- 
tary ardor of the Germans. It would seem as though 
the Germans had been lacking in the inventiveness 
which is so marked a feature of our modern civil- 
ization. 

"Nations are never accepted by other nations at 
their own valuation; and Germans need not be sur- 
prised that we are now astonished to find them assert- 
ing their natural self-appreciation, with the apparent 
expectation that it will pass unchallenged. The 
world owes a debt to modern Germany beyond all 
question, but this is far less than the debt owed to 
England and to France. It would be interesting if 
some German, speaking with authority, should now 
be moved to explain to us Americans the reasons 
which underlie the insistent assertion of the superior- 
ity of German civilization. Within the past few 
weeks we have been forced to gaze at certain of the 
less pleasant aspects of the German character: and 
we have been made to see that the militarism of the 



92 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

Germans is in absolute contradiction to ttie preach- 
ing and to the practice of the great Goethe, to whom 
they proudly point as the ultimate representative of 
German culture." . . . 

He adds finally : "The most obvious character- 
istic of a highly civilized man is his willingness to 
keep his word, at whatever cost to himself. For rea- 
sons satisfactory to itself Germany broke its pledge 
to respect the neutrality of Luxemburg and of Bel- 
gium. It is another characteristic of civilization to 
cherish the works of art which have been bequeathed 
to us by the past. For reasons satisfactory to itself 
Germany destroyed Louvain, more or less completely. 
It is a final characteristic of civilized man to be hu- 
mane and to refrain from ill-treating the blameless. 
For reasons satisfactory to itself, Germany dropped 
bombs in the unbesieged city of Antwerp and caused 
the death of innocent women and children. Here 
are three instances where German 'culture' has been 
tested and found wanting." 

Professor William Ramsay (34), whose position 
in the scientific world is of the very highest, says: 

"The originality of the German race has never, 
in spite of certain brilliant exceptions, been their 
characteristic; their metier has been rather the ex- 
ploitation of the inventions and discoveries of others ; 
and in this they are conspicuous. . . . The aim 
of science is the acquisition of knowledge of the un- 
known; the aim of applied science, the bettering of 
the lot of the human race. German ideals are infin- 
itely far removed from the conception of the true 
man of science." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 93 

He asks — as to the result of the annihilation of 
the present ruling German despots : 

"Will the progress of science be thereby re- 
tarded? I think not. The greatest advances in 
scientific thought have not been made by members of 
the German race; nor have the earlier applications 
of science had Germany for their origin. So far as 
we can see at present, the restrictions of the Teutons 
will relieve the world from a deluge of mediocrity. 
Much of their previous reputation has been due to 
Hebrew residents among them; and we may safely 
trust that race to persist in vitality and intellectual 
activity." 



X 

What are the duties of America at this time? 

It seems to me a very narrow and indeed a some- 
what discreditable view of the duty of America 
at this time, which would confine us to strict "neu- 
trality" in both word and deed. The former is, of 
course, practically impossible. The habit of saying 
what we think is too ingrained to be abandoned by rea- 
son of a Presidential or any other decree or proclama- 
tion. And what many Americans think is that we 
have ourselves been offended, injured, flouted by Ger- 
many's actions, beginning with the violation of the 
Belgian neutrality. 

There is in existence a document to which the 
United States of America is one of the signatories. 
Another signer is the German Emperor. This docu- 
ment embodies the results of The Hague Conferences 
of 1899 and 1907. Mr. Muirhead, of London (35), 
has discussed in a most interesting manner the situa- 
tion arising from the existence of this paper. One of 
its sections (Convention Concerning the Laws and 
Customs of War on Land) consists of a recitation of 
the practices which the signers solemnly undertake to 
abstain from in the prosecution of a war. Among the 
provisions in this code are the following: 

(94) 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 95 

Undefended towns shall not be bombarded 
(Article 25; also Article 1 of Naval Code). 

Pillage is expressly prohibited (Articles 28 and 
47). 

Illegal contributions must not be levied (Articles 
49 and 52). 

Militia and volunteer corps enjoy the rights of 
belligerents (Article 1). 

The seizure of funds belonging to private persons 
or local authorities is prohibited (Articles 46, 53 and 
56). 

Collective penalties for individual acts are for- 
bidden (Article 50). 

Every effort must be made to spare buildings 
dedicated to public w^orship, art, science or charitable 
purposes (Article 56). 

The terrorization of a country by outrages on its 
civilian population is forbidden (Article 46). 

It is forbidden to make improper use of a flag of 
truce, of the national flag, of the military insignia and 
uniform of the enemy, or of the distinctive signs of the 
Geneva Convention (Article 23) ; and it is forbidden 
to kill or mutilate the wounded, or to kill and wound 
by treachery (Article 23). 

The weight of evidence that Germany has fla- 
grantly violated most of these regulations is over- 
whelming, even if we omit those in the last paragraph 
as difficult to prove and peculiarly liable to exaggera- 
tion. 

Mr. Muirhead continues : 



96 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

* "The question, then, seems to arise obviously 

and inevitably : What is the position in these circum- 
stances of the other signatories to the code? 

"The United States of America w^as not one of 
the guarantors of the neutrality of Belgium. Hence, 
whatever may have been the feelings of its citizens, 
it was not, as a nation or government, legally called 
on to interfere. True, the action of Germany was a 
direct attack on the principles of liberty and inde- 
pendent nationality, of which the United States of 
America is rightly considered as one of the greatest 
protagonists. But it may be granted that civilization 
has not yet progressed so far that intervention on a 
purely ideal ground can be held to be a matter of 
practical politics — even for a country with 90,000,000 
inhabitants, and wealth beyond the dreams of 
avarice. 

"But unless the 'scrap of paper' theory is to be 
applied indiscriminately to all contracts and treaties 
between nations, what is the exact meaning of the 
signatures of other Powers, including the United 
States, to the decisions of The Hague conference? 
Do they mean only a promise that the signatory will 
itself observe those decisions? Or do they go fur- 
ther, and involve the obligation that each signatory 
State shall, so far as lies in its power, enforce the 
observance on any signatory that violates them? It 
cannot be maintained that such an obligation goes so 
far as to involve undertaking war for the purpose of 
enforcing observance, but surely it involves some 
effort to procure it ? Can a great nation afiford to put 
its name to a document and then stand by in icy 
neutrality while that document is being torn to 
shreds by another of the high contracting parties? 
Is the conduct of Germany in this regard really as 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 97 

much a matter of indifference to the United States 
of America as to China or Abyssinia? It is obvious 
that the signature of Germany is worthless, and that 
the signature of Great Britain is being honored. But 
has, or has not, the value of that of the United States 
of America been somewhat impaired? Germany's 
word was given to America as much as to England. 
Can America, then, consonantly with its dignity and 
honor, allow Germany to snap its fingers at her, and 
say, 'Well, what are you going to do about it ?' " 

Mr. Muirhead asks if the attitude of the United 
States of America should be, or must be, that of a 
neutral, equally friendly to both parties and waiting 
quietly for the chance to insinuate proposals of peace ; 
or if the necessity of the case is not something wider 
and deeper than can be met by an ordinary peace 
based on comparatively unimportant mutual conces- 
sions ? Is it not, he says, inevitably a fight to a finish, 
and is not the United States of America enormously 
interested in having that "finish" in one way only? 

He expresses the hope that the Allies will need 
no material assistance from the United States of 
America in achieving their ends, but adds : 

"Those of us, however, who love America must 
pray that she will definitely declare herself on the 
side of popular liberty, if for nothing else than for 
the preservation of the full measure of our love and 
admiration." 

In the early days of the war I was travelling in 
Alaska and in our Pacific northwest and Canada. I 



98 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

talked with many Americans whom I met on trains or 
boats or at hotels. I did not find among them a single 
pro-German. But when I expressed the view, which 
I then absolutely held, that we — the United States — 
should help to make the issue of the war certain by 
promptly offering the Allies every assistance in our 
power, I found no one to agree with me. 

I think I have noticed since then a steadily in- 
creasing and strengthening trend of public opinion 
in that direction. Now, when I express the same sen- 
timents, nearly every second person acquiesces. Many 
Americans have publicly put themselves on record as 
favoring some form of intervention on behalf of the 
Allies. Some would be content with a protest against 
the violation of the Hague convention and an expres- 
sion of opinion that would officially declare to the 
world, what the world already knows, the overwhelm- 
ing sympathy of this country for the cause and the 
principles for which the Allies are fighting. 

Others, among whom I am to be counted, are in 
favor of prompt recognition of the fact that for the 
sake of humanity and of civilization we cannot afford 
to permit Germany to win, and that the surest way of 
preventing it is to take sides at once. It seems a ter- 
rible thing to advocate war for one's own country 
when war might be avoided. But it is more terrible 
to think of the indefinite prolongation of the slaughter 
now going on and of the experiences of the coming 
winter now awaiting not only the combatants but the 
women and children and babies left without support 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 99 

and shelter. If our intervention brought victory to 
the cause of the AlHes a month earher than it would 
otherwise come, it would be justified. 

I am at one with Mr. Fraley, who, in the article 
I have twice quoted from (36), said: 

"Why not then take a hand at redefining, right 
now, whilst our action will be effective; saying to 
the War Lord: 'You have elected to ply your trade 
on these lines, but the business is at your peril. If 
you should be so unlucky as to shed American blood 
upon neutral ground, or even in an enemy's territory, 
at a point remote from battle and without due warn- 
ing; or if an American should be harmed, in person 
or property, by a mine of yours upon the high seas; 
we shall hold it to be an act of war.' 

" 'Advise' our fellow-neutral, Holland (whose 
present status is Germany's best asset), that it is con- 
trary to the public policy of the world that Germany 
should have the benefits of Dutch neutrality for the 
entrance of supplies, whilst trampling on the obliga- 
tions of neutrality towards her next door neighbor. 
Prohibit all shipments from the United States to Hol- 
land except upon the guarantee of the Dutch govern- 
ment that they shall not go beyond her border. Exert 
all our influence upon the public opinion of the world 
to denounce the War Lord as an enemy of the human 
race. 

"If Germany should resent this, how could we 
make good? 

"Send our Atlantic fleet to co-operate with the 
Allies in closing the Baltic, and take along, as supply 
ships and colliers, every German vessel now in our 
ports. We shall find some of them loaded already. 



100 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"What precedent exists for such a notice and 
demand? The mouth of the War Lord is closed on 
the subject of precedents, but if we must have a form- 
ula to go by, wherein would our action differ, in spirit, 
from that which we have already done in Cuba and 
in Mexico? 

"We, the great Neutral Power of the World, 
who desire that all neutrality shall be alike effective 
and respected, find the situation intolerable. We 
know that the one hope of stopping wars, is to supply 
a world wide sanction for the support of international 
laws and morals." 

I believe that to-day this expresses the view of 
a large and rapidly increasing number of Americans, 
and that before long the majority of our people will 
regard it as the duty of the President to protest 
against the disregard of treaties and the violation of 
conventions, and to make such protest so emphatic that 
there can be no doubt left in the minds of the Kaiser 
and the German people that the sympathies and, if nec- 
essary, the support of the United States are pledged to 
the cause of the Allies. 

Dr. Charles Eliot, President Emeritus of Har- 
vard, in an address on "America's Duty in Relation 
to the European War" is quoted as saying (I have not 
yet seen the original address) : (37) 

"With Germany, might made right. She made a 
violent attack on the weaker, because it was the short- 
est, the easiest way. What a blow this was to our 
idea of mercy, to our conception of the progress of 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 101 

man from a barbarian to a civilized, fair, merciful 
being ! We had hoped that the methods of war were 
capable of amelioration, but this war has blown all 
those hopes to the winds. 

"All our hopes were shattered by Germany's ac- 
tion. All our American ideas of the right to life, 
liberty, property, happiness, were nullified by this 
nation, which is led by a ruler who has an archaic 
idea of his powers and of his relation to the world. 
Germany has shown us that in the most advanced 
nation, as far as science is concerned, there is no 
place for mercy, no place for good will and that 
hatred takes the place of good motives. 

"We must bear in mind the deep obligations 
which this nation is under to England and France, 
so deep that it is vain to expect us to be in our hearts 
neutral. Can we think of giving no aid to France if 
she comes to the end of her resources ; to England if 
she should be reduced to like straits? 

"But let us not confuse our minds by failing to 
see whither the German policy tends. Let us not 
dream of abandoning our faith that human relations 
shall be determined by considerations of justice, 
mercy, love, and good will. We must help the Allies 
if our assistance is requested." 

To quote the usually pacific "Outlook" (October 
7, 1914), and with most cordial approval: 

"To a nation that acknowledges no law but its 
own might, those nations that have a sense of honor 
and regard their obligations as binding, can only say : 
'If only the sword will induce you to keep your word, 
we shall have to let the sword do its work. It will 



102 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

be our business to see that the observance of treaties 
which we regard as a matter of honor, you shall find 
to be a matter of self-interest.' " 

Professor G. B. Adams, of Yale, is reported (38) 
to have said recently : 

"So much is at stake for civilization in this war 
that Germany must not be allowed to win it, even if 
it becomes necessary for the United States to enter 
the conflict on the side of the Allies. . . . Ger- 
many represents in government and institutions an 
obsolescent system away from which the world has 
been advancing for generations. . . . Germany 
must be defeated in this war. If it comes to the point 
when it is necessary for the United States to aid the 
Allies to the end that they should win, then I hope it 
will be done. She is opposed to everything for which 
we stand, and our turn would be next if Germany 
were successful." 

Mr. Robert Bacon, ex-Ambassador from the 
United States to France, says: (39) 

"Signs are not wanting that the people of this 
country are unwilling to submit much longer to the 
injunction laid upon them that our neutrality should 
impose upon us silence regarding aspects of the Euro- 
pean war with which we have a vital concern. There 
are many men who consider that this nation is shirk- 
ing its duty by maintaining a policy which may be in- 
terpreted as giving tacit assent to acts involving us 
morally and much more intimately than has yet been 
expressed. These men believe that we have a high 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 103 

responsibility in upholding the treaties which were 
signed at the Second Conference at The Hague in 
1907 and ratified by the United States and the na- 
tions now at war. 

"In The Hague convention referred to we have a 
real and intimate concern. That convention was 
signed by the delegates from the United States and 
ratified by the United States government, and it was 
signed and ratified by Germany, making it a treaty 
between Germany and the United States, in which 
the other ratifying Powers were joined. 

"In admittedly violating Articles I and II of that 
convention Germany broke a treaty she had solemnly 
made and entered into with the United States. 

"Are we to suffer a nation to break a treaty 
with us, on whatever pretext, without entering, at 
least, a formal protest? Will anyone contend that 
our neutrality imposes silence upon us under such 
conditions? Are The Hague conventions to become 
'scraps of paper' without a single word of protest 
from this government? If the treaties which we made 
at The Hague are to be so lightly regarded, then why 
not all our other treaties? As a matter of fact, it is 
our solemn duty to protest against a violation of 
pledges formally entered into between this govern- 
ment and any other government, and Ave assume a 
heavy moral responsibility when we remain silent. In 
this crisis, particularly, other nations look to us and 
never, perhaps, has our example had greater force." 



Professor Henry M. Howe, of Columbia Univer- 
sity, has expressed (40) as follows the alternatives 
open to the United States : 



104 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"Are there not two courses now open to us which 
may direct the course of human affairs for centuries ; 
the first to be neutral, while revictualling and rearm- 
ing Germany as far as is possible through Holland 
and Scandinavia, and thereby increasing the chance of 
her reaching a position in which she can later conquer 
us and the rest of the planet, and meanwhile force 
us to become primarily military instead of industrial ; 
the second to join the Allies and prevent Germany 
reaching that position, not only directly by our 
strength, but still more by withholding from her those 
supplies of food, ammunition and gasolene without 
which she must yield? 

"Germany having now disclosed her wish to rule 
the planet, does she not know that this war will de- 
cide either that she shall reach a position in which she 
can carry out that wish or that the rest of the world 
recognizing this to be her wish, will combine to pre- 
vent her in perpetuity from reaching that position ? 

"And is not this knowledge one sufficient reason 
for her anxiety for our good will, lest we aid the 
Allies to prevent her reaching it? 

*'If we are to have a world alliance for restrain- 
ing military aggression, should not that alliance be 
formed now rather than after the subjugation of the 
Allies shall have left no unsubjugated civilized pow- 
ers collectively strong enough to restrain Germany? 
The world's present power to crush the aggressor 
suffices. If we allow this war to go against the Allies, 
shall we not thereby lose perhaps the last golden op- 
portunity? 

"If our danger seems remote, is not that because 
we have not given it thought? 

"If the great work of the Allies is to prevent 
Germany becoming irresistible, is not this as neces- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 105 

sary to our preservation as to theirs? If so, do not 
honor and dignity call on us to assume our share in 
the burden of this prevention?" 

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, with 
the annexed regulations, were signed by the direction 
of Colonel Roosevelt, then President of the United 
States, and expressed the practically unanimous senti- 
ments of our people. 

Colonel Roosevelt now writes: (41) 

"Most emphatically I would not have per- 
mitted such a farce to go through if it had en- 
tered my head that this government would not 
consider itself bound to do all it could to see that the 
regulations to which it made itself a party were act- 
ually observed when the necessity for their observ- 
ance arose. . . .Of the present neutral powers 
the United States of America is the most disinter- 
ested and the strongest, and should, therefore, bear 
the main burden of the responsibility in this matter. 
. . . If they (The Hague Conventions) meant 
anything, if the United States had a serious purpose, a 
serious sense of its obligations to world righteousness 
when it entered into them then its plain duty (after 
proof of their violation has been obtained) is to take 
whatever action may be necessary to vindicate the 
principles of international law set forth in those con- 
ventions." 

Professor William Gardner Hale, of Chicago, 
says (42) that as the second Hague Conference dealt 
with neutral powers everywhere in the world, and as 



106 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

the agreement declared their territory "inviolable," 
and as this was agreed to by forty-two other powers 
(in addition to Germany and the United States), Ger- 
many's act in breaking the law did not concern Eng- 
land, France, Belgium and herself alone, it concerned 
us. "It was not merely a shameful act toward a brave 
but weak state, if was an offence to us." 
Professor Hale continues : 

"In a given country there is force to maintain 
the laws. As between countries, there has been no 
means. There is, in the technical phrase, no sanc- 
tion. It is absolutely essential that there should be 
a sanction. There never can be any except force. 
That cannot be the force of the combatants. They 
are already engaged with all their might in the 
struggle. The law breaker will go on breaking. If he 
wins there will never even be any punishment. Our 
President has said that these questions will be taken 
up at the end of the war at The Hague. But if Ger- 
many wins there will never be any conference at The 
Hague. The Hague will be at the War Office in Ber- 
lin, and there will be no admission. 

"If the Allies conquer there will be a conference. 
The forty-four powers will take part. But even so, 
there can never be any security against further law 
breaking, except that powers which are strangers to 
the dispute should, the moment there is sure violation 
of the laws of war, throw in their strength against the 
guilty side. It will have to be some powerful nation, 
or nations, that do this. We are such a nation. Our 
fleet is the third in the world, though our army is 
small. Our resources, if brought into operation, are 
great. We are also a determined people. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 107 

"This is no small quarrel. The fate of the world 
hangs upon it. That which we ought some day to do 
we should do now ; should have done already. Tech- 
nical reasons, as well as moral reasons, we have in 
abundance. Solemn treaties made 'between the 
United States and other powers,' including Germany, 
have been broken by her. The breaking of a treaty 
is always a sufficient reason for a declaration of war 
if the offended party desires. We had a sufficient 
reason on the day on which the text of the German 
ultimatum to Belgium was published, even if we were 
doubtful about the ridiculous reason given. Ger- 
many's announcement that, if Belgium resisted the 
violation of her territory, Germany would regard her 
resistance as a hostile act, and treat the relations of 
the two countries thereafter according to the arbitra- 
ment of war, was enough. When precious historical 
monuments, which are in a very true sense the prop- 
erty of all mankind, began to be destroyed or to be 
gravely injured there was again enough. When an 
unfortified and undefended town was three times 
bombarded there was again enough. When the 
peaceful vessels of neutrals, as well as vessels of 
war, began to be blown up by floating mines there 
was once more enough. And, even if we did not 
make war, it was our duty at the very least to address 
a temperate protest to Germany. We did not pro- 
test. The love of fair play is inherent in the Anglo- 
Saxon race, as well as in most others. Even a crowd 
at a prizefight or a game will not tolerate repeated 
and deliberate foul play and wait to the end in the 
hope of adjudication. It will promptly drag the of- 
fending party out of the ring. But we do nothing. 
"We are not a military nation and are not pre- 
pared. But our navy could at once have patrolled 



108 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

the seas and given security in the Atlantic. We could 
have kept the communications between France and 
England open. We could have guarded the English 
harbors. We could have set the English fleet en- 
tirely free to do its most important work, if it is in 
any way possible to do it — namely, to destroy the 
German navy. That once gone, Germany could never 
have built another until after peace was declared. 
She would have been heavily crippled. A declaration 
of war from us would also have at once shut off all 
American food from reaching Germany by any chan- 
nel. We could also have sent at once a small army 
to the field. There was a time when a small addi- 
tional force would have made a difference. We could 
have asked for volunteers. Hundreds of thousands 
would have offered themselves. We were not pre- 
pared, but Germany would have known that we were 
preparing. She would have seen that her cause was 
hopeless." 

These quotations, representing the views of an 
ex-President of the United States, an ex-President of 
Harvard, an ex- Ambassador, a Yale professor, a Chi- 
cago professor, a Columbia professor and a Philadel- 
phia lawyer, must serve to indicate the reasons for my 
belief that American public opinion now tends to favor 
some form of intervention, not from quarrelsomeness, 
certainly not for selfish motives or from desire for ag- 
grandizement, but chiefly from the wish to have our 
country discharge a great international duty, thrust 
upon us by the irresistible force of circumstances, a 
duty, the proper discharge of which would make hu- 
manity our debtor for ages to come. 



XI 

What are the interests of America at this time? 

I think many Americans must have blushed when 
they read Mr. Champ Clark's speech early in Septem- 
ber and saw that he had said that we wanted to "en- 
courage peace-making in the old world partly out of 
motives of humanity, but largely because we do not 
want to be injured." He certainly did not speak for 
the American people in placing that motive above all 
others. 

Yet it is right that we should ask : What may we 
expect if Germany is victorious in this war? 

We know the principles for which she stands. 
We know her disregard for obligations, spoken or 
written. We know her intention to gain ''World 
Power" at any cost. Have we any reason to think 
that she would respect us, our wishes, our persons, our 
property ? 

Dr. Dernburg, the ex-Colonial Secretary, was, a 
few days ago, understood to have declared that Ger- 
many had announced its recognition of the Monroe 
Doctrine. (43) The Monroe Doctrine, as every Amer- 
ican knows, dates back to 1828, when "certain Euro- 
pean Powers showed signs of wishing to help Spain 
recover her lost American colonies." President Mon- 

(109) 



110 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

roe said: ''We owe it therefore to candor . . . . 
to declare that we consider any attempt on their part 
to extend their system to any portion of this hemi- 
sphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." That 
is the important part of the Monroe Doctrine. Fortu- 
nately the republics of South America have attained 
such size and strength that the further statement that 
we could not permit anyone to "oppress them" or to 
"control their destiny" might now well be modified to 
read that we would gladly aid them, if they needed aid, 
in resisting any such attempt. 

Dr. Dernburg's statement was to be understood 
as an assurance that Germany did not intend to estab- 
lish colonies in this hemisphere. 

A little latter our State Department issued an an- 
nouncement to the effect that the German Ambassador, 
Count von Bernstorff, had on September 3, 1914, in a 
note to the department "stated that he was instructed 
by his Government to deny most emphatically the 
rumors to the effects that Germany intends, in case she 
comes out victorious in the present war, to seek expan- 
sion in South America." 

As "The Outlook" observes (November 4, 1914) : 

"The sweeping statement of Dr. Dernburg is 
thus reduced to an official expression concerning 
Germany's intention with regard to South America. 
Thus it is seen that there was no pledge offered, but 
merely an expression of intention. And Americans 
must remember that intentions change. In the sec- 
ond place it related, not to the whole of the Western 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 111 

Hemisphere, but merely to South America. What 
Germany's intentions are with regard to North 
America, including Canada and the West Indies, was 
left to American imagination. 

"But not for long. One day later there was pub- 
lished a further statement by Dr. Dernburg, and a 
statement by the German Ambassador, Count von 
Bernstorfif." 



The latter said that a German invasion of Canada 
for a temporary foothold on this continent would not 
violate the Monroe Doctrine, and Dr. Dernburg said 
that by sending Canadian troops to the war, "Canada 
had placed herself beyond the pale of American pro- 
tection." 

He took pains to add that Germany would, how- 
ever, extend her respect for South American territory 
to that of our neighbor to the north. 

But can Americans afford to believe them? The 
papers are already asking whether "in the light cast 
upon German international policy by the Ems dispatch 
— forged or doctored, as one may choose to call it — by 
Bismarck to bring on the Franco-German war of 1870- 
71, and by the "scrap of paper" incident in this war, 
we can afford to adopt any policy in relation to Ger- 
many but that of extreme watchful waiting and pre- 
paredness for whatever events may happen in the near 
future." 

I agree with the London "Spectator" (September 
26, 1914) : 



112 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

"Strange as it 'will sound to most American ears 
. . .it is none the less true that at this moment 
what stands between the Monroe Doctrine and its 
complete destruction are our ships in the North Sea 
and the battle-weary, mud-stained men in the British 
and French trenches on the Aisne." 

We can get some information as to the probabili- 
ties in this direction from other sources. We have 
seen how accurately Bernhardi and Treitschke fore- 
cast the immediate future in their writings. There 
were other prophets in their country. The late Mr. 
W. T. Arnold, grandson of Arnold of Rugby, in a sum- 
mary of the "German Professorial Campaign," 
quotes as follows frotn Dr. W. Wintzer's book, ''Die 
Deutschen in Tropischen Amerika" : 

"The moral core of the Monroe doctrine van- 
ished on the day when the document concerning the 
annexation of the Philippines was signed by Mc- 
Kinley." He (Wintzer) claims "the right to confront 
this Greater-American doctrine with a Greater-Ger- 
man one" ; and adds : "Equality of treatment with the 
United States in South America — that is the theory 
which we both on principle and as occasion serves, 
must oppose to the Monroe Doctrine and which, too, 
should the moment come, we must defend by force" 
. . . "The American order of 'Hands Off!' in 
South America must be answered in the negative. 

"Two of the Pan-German prophets of the future, 
'Germania Triumphans' and Dr. Eisenhart, represent 
Germany as fighting against both Britain and the 
United States, but fighting against them separately. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 113 

In Germania Triumphans, the United States are first 
attacked and defeated by both sea and land, and Brit- 
ain is represented as chuckle-headed enough, and 
base enough to look on and do nothing. Then comes 
Britain's turn. The only difference in Dr. Eisen- 
hart's vaticination of the future is that Germany take 
Britain first and the United States look on. Britain 
is disposed of, 'and now' says the prophet, 'it was 
time to reckon with America.' Not even these half- 
sane Pan-Germans contemplate the possibility of deal- 
ing with Britain and the United States together." 

Price Collier (Op. cit., p. 547) says: 

"In discussing Senator Lodge's resolution before 
the United States Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, 
the German press spoke of us as 'hirnverbrannte 
Yankees,' 'bornierte Yankee-Gehirne, ('crazy Yank- 
ees,' 'provincial Yankee intellects') ; and the words 
'Dollarika,' 'Dollarei,' and 'Dollarman,' are further 
malicious expressions of their envy frequently used." 

SchmoUer, the political economist, writes : 

"We must at all costs hope for the formation in 
Southern Brazil, of a State with twenty or thirty mil- 
lions." 



It is obvious, at this moment, showing through 
the recent "statements" and "announcements" of the 
highly placed Germans whom I have quoted, that at 
least the possibility of Germany's disregard of the 
Monroe Doctrine is present in their minds. Circum- 



114 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

stances enjoin caution. Americans are to be placated 
— just now — not irritated or alarmed. Bernhardi, 
Treitschke, Wintzer, Eisenhart, Schmoller are to be 
repudiated. 

But in view of her callous and brutal disregard of 
formal obligations, entered into with the majority of 
the civilized nations of the world, and in view of the 
many other reasons (p. 83) for doubting the relia- 
bility of German statements at this time, can any 
American contemplate with equanimity the possibility 
of this war ending in a Germania Triumphans? 

Is that a prospect which, in view of what we know 
of the purpose, interest, determination, not only of the 
military caste, but, at least for a time, of the whole 
nation, Americans can regard with indifference or a 
condition which they can await with serenity ? 

Ferrero, the Italian philosophical historian, prac- 
tically answers that question when he says (44) : 

"This war will either increase still more the 
military costs in Germany or will largely destroy it. 
Germany is moved to the conflict with the expecta- 
tion of repeating 1870: that is of making a rapid 
victorious campaign, the cost of which will be cov- 
ered by the immense indemnities imposed upon the 
conquered. And if the General Staff succeeds in this 
enterprise, the German army, and the Hohenzollerns 
who are its leaders, will achieve such prestige in Ger- 
many, in Europe, and in the world, that no strength 
can oppose them." 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 115 

But Professor Hale still more fully and specific- 
ally answers the question (loc. cit.) : 

"What do we Americans pray for as the issue 
of this great struggle? Russia is autocratic, but she 
has abundantly produced men who eagerly suffered 
martyrdom for freedom. Germany did once, but has 
stopped. Nor does German America seem any longer 
to raise up citizens of the Carl Schurz kind, who 
rebelled against this very bureaucratic militarism that 
has produced the war. England, France and Belgium 
are democratic countries. Miinsterberg (page 205) 
speaks of 'the tremendous increase of the monarch- 
ical conviction.' Von Biilow, for twelve years Ger- 
man Minister for Foreign Affairs, quotes with 
approval, in his just published 'Imperial Germany,' 
the statement, 'German parliaments, in a compara- 
tively short space of time, mostly sink to the level of 
a district council,' and expresses his own conceptions 
in such sentences as : 'In history strong military States 
have always required monarchical guidance,' and 
'In foreign as well as home politics I considered it 
my noblest task to the best of my understanding and 
ability to strengthen, protect and support the crown, 
not only on account of deep loyalty and personal 
affection for the wearer, but also because I see in 
the crown the cornerstone of Prussia and the key- 
stone of the empire.' As for Austria, it was against 
this very Francis Joseph that Cavour planned, and 
Garibaldi fought, for Italian liberty. Which type of 
ideas do we want to see succeed? 

"The victory of the Allies would mean an Eng- 
lish England, a French France, an Italian Italy, a Rus- 
sian Russia, a German Germany. It would mean a 



116 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

Europe of free nations, each developing its own char- 
acteristics and ideals. Germany would not, I hope 
and believe, even lose her foreign possessions, except 
the little one taken from China, which should be 
handed back. But she should be made tO' restore 
Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark and Alsace-Lorraine 
to France. She should be made to take her place 
as one of the family of equal nations, and not its 
mistress. And we should lend our strength at once, 
as well as our good wishes, to this end. 

"The victory of Germany and Austria would 
mean a Germanized and bureaucratically controlled 
England, France, Russia and Italy; for Italy would 
not survive. It would be a world intolerable to live in, 
and intolerable for an American to think about. But 
thinking about it is not the only thing that he would 
suffer. 

"The victory of Germany would put at her dis- 
posal an enormous fleet, consisting of all the ships 
that survived the war. Her ambition would not be 
sated. She aims at nothing less than world dominion. 
'Deutschland iiber alles' does not mean 'with the 
exception of the United States.' She has known how 
to attack us. The moment she had a trained German 
personnel for her immense navy. South America, or 
as much as she wanted of it from time to time, would 
become a German colony. The nucleus already exists 
in Brazil, and could easily enough produce an excuse 
for war if one was thought desirable for historical 
purposes. To the winds would go the Monroe Doc- 
trine and South American freedom. We, with our 
then relatively tiny navy, should be helpless, either 
to keep Germany off or to dislodge her. From 
South America she would strike at us. Our coasts 
would be at her mercy, and she could land her dis- 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 117 

ciplined troops anywhere. The country would be full 
of spies, as France and Belgium are to-day. We 
should fight desperately, and our land is of great ex- 
tent. But only disciplined armies can prevail in these 
times. Guerilla warfare is useless. Fighting would 
be done here by railroads and the reduction of great 
centres. The population of Germany and Austria is 
to-day larger than ours by some sixteen millions ; and 
Germany, then the mistress of Europe, could safely 
bring an army into the field from many quarters, both 
of Europe and South America. The struggle would 
be bitter. We should have the advantage in distance ; 
but the ocean is narrow to-day, as the presence of 
soldiers from all parts of the world on the battlefields 
of France has shown us. And Germany would have 
every other possible start upon us. 

"This is no idle speculation. It is no more a 
nightmare than was the possibility of a Germanized 
Europe a few months ago. We should stop it all by 
throwing our strength now upon the side of the Allies. 

"I have put my arguments on the basis of Ger- 
many's breaking of international law. But I will put 
it also on another basis. War must come to an end. 
It does not belong to our generation or to civilization. 
Convention 1 of The Hague does not make it com- 
pulsory for any country to arbitrate a dispute, such 
as that between Austria and Servia, if it does not 
wish to. But it also does not forbid any power in 
the world to fall upon the aggressor. The American 
people know who was the aggressor, just as Italy 
knew. We have had the statements of both sides. 
That guilty government should be taught that a mon- 
strous war of aggression will never in the future be 
tolerated. Such a lesson would go very far to stop 
all wars." 



118 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

I need dwell no longer upon this point. 

Both duty and self-interest should lead America 
to make sure at whatever sacrifice that German mili- 
tarism does not in the outrageous war which it has 
precipitated, triumph over the democratic ideals for 
which little Belgium has almost laid down her national 
existence, for which — under whatever nominal form 
of government — the Allies are valiantly fighting, and 
for which we as well as they should be ready to make 
any sacrifice of life or treasure that may be needed. 

I believe — to quote "The Outlook" once more 
(October 21, 1914)— that— 

"As theocracy, or the attempt to make men 
righteous by force failed in the New England col- 
onies ; as serfdom and slavery, or the attempt to make 
men industrious by force, failed in Russia and the 
United States ; as feudalism, or the attempt to make 
men loyal and chivalrous by force, failed in England; 
and as the spirit of materialistic revolution, or the 
attempt to make men liberal-minded and intellectually 
free by force, failed in France — so the doctrine of 
Machtpolitik, the attempt by Germany to impose a 
civilization upon humanity by force ; must fail — must 
be made to fail." 



XII 

What in the light of this war should be the aim of 
this and other civilised countries for the future? 

A. To this final question I would reply in the 
words of Colonel Roosevelt, in a recent article on 
"What America Should Learn From the War": 
(45) 

"What is needed in international matters is to 
create a judge, and then to put police power back 
of the judge. . . . 

"The one permanent move for obtaining peace 
which has yet been suggested, with any reasonable 
chance of attaining its object, is by an agreement 
among the great powers, in which each should pledge 
itself not only to abide by the decisions of a common 
tribunal, but to back with force the decisions of that 
common tribunal. The great civilized nations of the 
world which do possess force, actual or immediately 
potential, should combine by solemn agreement in a 
great World League for the Peace of Righteousness. 
A court should be created — a changed and amplified 
Hague court would meet the requirements — composed 
of representatives from each nation ; these representa- 
tives being sworn to act in each case as judges, pure 
and simple, and not in a representative capacity. The 
nations should agree on certain rights that should not 
be questioned, such as their territorial integrity, their 
rights to deal with their own domestic affairs and with 

(119) 



120 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

such matters as whom they should or should not 
admit to residence and citizenship within their own 
borders. All should guarantee each of their number 
in the possession of these rights. All should agree 
that other matters at issue between any of them, or 
between any of them and any one of a number of 
specified outside civilized nations, should be submitted 
to the court as above constituted. They should, 
furthermore, agree not only to abide, each of them, 
by the decision of the court, but all of them to unite 
with their military forces to enforce the decree of 
the court, as against any recalcitrant member. Under 
these circumstances, it would be possible to agree on 
a limitation of armaments that would be real and 
effective. 

"If any nation were unwilling to go into such a 
general agreement with other nations, it would of 
necessity have to depend upon its own armed strength 
for its own protection. This is the only alternative. 
Treaties unbacked by force cannot be considered as 
an alternative by any sober persons of sound judg- 
ment. ... 

"Such a scheme as the one briefly outlined will 
not bring perfect justice any more than under munic- 
ipal law we obtain perfect justice; but it will mark 
an immeasurable advance on anything now existing; 
for it will mean that at last a long stride has been 
taken in the effort to put the collective strength of 
civilized mankind behind the collective purpose of 
mankind to secure the peace of righteousness, the 
peace of justice among the nations of the earth." 



SUMMARY 

Reviewing what I have written and, more partic- 
ularly, what I have collated, it seems to me that I have 
given a justifiable basis for the following opinions : 

The war is a German-made war, having its source 
and inspiration in the writings and teachings of the 
Pan-Germanists ; in the ambitions of an autocratic 
military caste, headed by a highly neurotic, unbal- 
anced, and possibly mentally diseased overlord, with 
mediaeval views of his relation to his country and the 
world, and supported by a subservient corps of 
"learned men," the majority of whom are paid serv- 
ants of the State. 

The war in the last analysis was made possible by 
the megalomania of a preponderating section of the 
German people and by the carefully nurtured and fo- 
mented desire for World Power. 

To bring about this condition that People has 
been made to believe in the superiority — which does 
not exist — of German civilization to all other civiliza- 
tions; in the pre-eminence — equally non-existent — of 
German "culture"; in the theory that Might makes 
Right, and that it is only in the course of Nature that 
weaker — and therefore presumably inferior — peoples 
should yield their ideals, their liberties, and their des- 
tinies into the hands of any nation that by the arbitra- 

(121) 



122 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

ment of War should prove itself the master of all 
others. 

As a logical result of these views, at a time se- 
lected by reason of the undoubted preparedness of 
Germany, the supposed unreadiness and internal trou- 
bles of other nations, and the growing burden of the 
German military and naval armaments, the war was 
precipitated, on a relatively trivial and entirely avoid- 
able pretext, the other great countries then concerned, 
England, Russia and France, having shown up to the 
last moment an honest and sincere desire for peace. 

As an immediate step toward the attainment of 
her purpose Germany violated a solemn contract en- 
tered into deliberately, seventy-five years ago, and 
afiirmed and re-affirmed by her representatives almost 
up to the date of its abrupt, but deliberate and unde- 
nied infraction. 

As a result of this action and of the resistance 
properly offered, in conformity with the very treaty 
which Germany had contemptuously disregarded and 
set aside, the world has witnessed with horror the 
brutal despoilment, occupation, almost the annihila- 
tion, of a brave, innocent, unoffending, highly civilized 
and industrious country by an adversary whose only 
right in so doing rested on the might it was able to 
bring to bear. 

In spite of the war's stupendous proportions, the 
immensity of its scope and area, and the diverse and 
conflicting interests involved, the principles at stake 
are easily recognizable. 



A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 123 

Germany and her more or less insignificant and 
contemptible tools, Austria and Turkey, represent ab- 
solutism, militarism, feudalism, mediaevalism, despot- 
ism, autocracy. The "Monarchical idea" is a disin- 
genuous substitute for these terms, with which, how- 
ever, it is in essence synonymous. 

The Allies are fighting for democratic liberty, for 
representative government, for the equal rights of in- 
dividuals, whether relatively insignificant persons or 
relatively powerless States. 

So far as America is concerned, Germany and her 
parasites stand for everything in which we do not be- 
lieve. The Allies represent — and are fighting, starv- 
ing and dying for — everything that makes American 
liberty, happiness and independence possible. 

Our technical position is one of "neutrality," but 
our overwhelming sympathy is with the Allies. 

Our technical grievance lies in Germany's delib- 
erate flouting of conventions of which we were, with 
her, a signatory; our real grievance rests on the 
danger to humanity, to the ideas that lie at the very 
foundation of our republic, to our own future security, 
that would attend the success of Germany in this war. 

Our duties and our interests coincide. 

We should at the very least strengthen the waver- 
ing, reassure the doubting, give new hope to the des- 
pairing by proclaiming to the world our absolute and 
unreserved belief in the right and justice of the cause 
of the Allies, and our determination to see to it, should 
the worst come to them, that they shall have our mate- 



124 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

rial support to our last dollar, our last bushel of corn, 
our last drop of blood. 

But better it would seem to many of us, and in the 
long run more truly merciful, if we now, on the basis 
of Germany's admitted and open disregard of solemn 
obligations entered into zvith us, determined to cast the 
weight of our available force — whatever it may be — 
into the scale. For one, I believe it would be enough 
to determine the result and save tens of thousands of 
useful lives, months of suffering to helpless women 
and children, and treasures of civilization to the world 
and to the generations that are to follow us. 

Our own unpreparedness must be admitted, but 
with unbeaten and valiant friends there would be less 
risk of disaster than if we supinely await their over- 
throw and then have, practically alone, to battle for all 
that, to us, makes life worth living. 

No one can pj'ove that such a grim necessity will 
confront us, but the American who cannot see it as a 
possible, even a probable and not very remote se- 
quence of the emergence of a "Triumphant Germany" 
from this war, is blind to the teachings of history re- 
mote and recent. 



REFERENCES 

1. The Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, October 10, 1914. 

2. Harper's Weekly, October, 1914. 

3. The Public Ledger, October 4, 1914. 

4. "Imperial Germany," by Prince Biilow. 

5. Professor Paulsen of Berlin; quoted by W. H. Dawson 

in "The Evolution of Modern Germany." 

6. The Public Ledger, September 27, 1914. 

7. Quoted by "The Outlook," October 21, 1914. 

8. Quoted by "The Outlook," October 21, 1914. 

9. "Germany's Swelled Head," London, 1907. 

10. The Public Ledger, November 13, 1914. 

11. The Public Ledger, October 25, 1914. 

12. The North American, Philadelphia, October 25, 1914. 

13. The North American, Philadelphia, September 27, 1914. 

14. The North American, Philadelphia, October 26, 1914. 

15. The Atlantic Monthly, October, 1914. 

16. "Germany and the Next War." 

17. Quoted by Reich — op. cit. 

18. The Outlook, November 4, 1914. 

19. "The War and America," 1914. 

20. The North American, October 6, 1914. 

21. The Literary Digest, November 7, 1914. 

22. "Germany and the Germans," p. 539. 

23. Quoted by Rel h — op. cit. 

24. The North American, October 6, 1914. 

25. The Times, London, August 15, 1914. 

26. The Nation, New York, October 15, 1914. 

27. The Times, London, July 30, 1900. 

28. The Times, London, August 11, 1900. 

(125) 



126 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 

29. Emil Reich — op. cit. 

30. The North American, October 11, 1914. 

31. "Truth About Germany: Facts About the War." 

32. The Nation, page 376, 1914. ■ 

33. The Literary Digest, October 3, 1914. 

34. "Nature," October 2, 1914. 

35. The Nation, October 15, 1914. 

36. "Why and How a War Lord Wages War." 

37. The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, October 17, 1914. 

38. The Record, Philadelphia, November 3, 1914. 

39. New York Evening Post, November 4, 1914. 

40. The New York Tribune, November 12, 1914. 

41. The North American, October 18, 1914. 

42. The New York Tribune, November 10, 1914. 

43. The Public Ledger, October 26, 1914. 

44. The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1914. 

45. The North American, October 18, 1914. 

In addition, I have consulted : 

Pan-Germanism, by Roland G. Usher. 

The Evolution of Modern Germany, by W. H. Dawson. 

Germany and England, by Professor J. A. Cramb. 

Men Around the Kaiser, by F. W. Wile. 

Why We Are at War, Great Britain's Case, by members of the 

Oxford Faculty of Modern History. 
Nietzsche and Treifschke : The Worship of Power in Modern 

Germany, by Ernest Barker, M.A. 
The Germans, (in two parts), by C. R. L. Fletcher, 
The War and the British Dominions, by M. ^. Egerton. 
India and the War, by Sir Ernest J. Trevelyan. 
The Deeper Causes of the War, by Dr. Sanday. 
The Nations of Europe: The Causes and Issues of the Great 
War, by Charles Morris. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




